Suchergebnisse

Dottorato di ricerca in Storia d'Europa: Società, politica e istituzioni(XIX-XX Secolo) ; Una curiosa espressione di Jacques Delors, più volte utilizzata nel corso della sua carriera, definì le istituzioni comunitarie come un "O.P.N.I., oggetto politico non identificato". L'affermazione di Delors appare come un compromesso tra l'interesse a tutela dei diritti degli Stati e la necessità di attribuire al processo di integrazione europea istituzioni stabili e soprattutto autonome. In realtà, i caratteri di profonda instabilità mostrati dal modello di Comunità ne fecero scaturire due orientamenti interpretativi differenti. Il primo considerò il raggiungimento dell'obiettivo prefissato nella realizzazione di una unione politica; come sostiene Riccardo Perissich, "Ai limitati trasferimenti di sovranità già decisi, altri ne sarebbero seguiti, anche se sempre in modo graduale. Coerentemente con questo approccio, le istituzioni avrebbero dovuto evolvere verso un modello classico. La Commissione si sarebbe trasformata in un esecutivo federale; il Consiglio dei ministri in un "Senato degli Stati"; l'Assemblea parlamentare in un vero Parlamento federale"1. Il secondo orientamento si basò sull'idea che il principio di sovranità non potesse essere frammentato e che il conferimento di potere previsto dai Trattati fosse più di carattere tecnico che politico. Questa seconda interpretazione aumentò i dubbi e la diffidenza nei confronti della Commissione e ancor più del Parlamento. C'è da dire inoltre, che gli Stati firmatari dei Trattati si riconobbero più nella prima lettura del modello, con un necessario distinguo per la Francia che, all'epoca dell'entrata in vigore era presieduta dal generale Charles De Gaulle, fortemente contrario, come noto, all'idea di una qualsiasi minima cessione di potere a livello sovranazionale. A seguito della fusione di CECA, CEE ed EURATOM una sola Commissione unificò l'apparato amministrativo mentre al Parlamento europeo venne assegnato unicamente il compito di esercitare il potere in materia di bilancio, oltre ad una funzione meramente consultiva; l'elezione diretta del Parlamento fu contemplata nell'articolo n.138 del Trattato istitutivo della Comunità europea nel quale, oltre ad essere indicato il sistema di elezione dei parlamentari europei delegati come provvisorio, 1R. Perissich, L'Unione Europea una storia non ufficiale, Milano, Longanesi, 2008, p.54. venne previsto che il Parlamento avrebbe elaborato progetti volti alla realizzazione di una procedura di elezione uniforme per tutti gli Stati membri. Di fatto, negli anni che intercorsero tra il 1951 e il 1976, furono presentate numerose proposte orientate all'istituzione della procedura di elezione a suffragio universale diretto che, dopo molte difficoltà, trovarono soltanto nel 1979 la loro attuazione; questo risultato rappresentò l'inizio di una nuova era in cui l'importanza della comunicazione politico-istituzionale giocò un ruolo fondamentale per creare il necessario contatto con i cittadini, in previsione della loro partecipazione al voto europeo. Ricordiamo come nel 1974, al vertice francese presieduto da Valéry Giscard D'Estaing, venne adottata la decisione di istituire il Consiglio europeo e l'elezione diretta del Parlamento. L'evento avrebbe esercitato una notevole influenza nella dinamica istituzionale europea; nonostante il suo assetto di Assemblea diversa da quelle nazionali, il Parlamento europeo direttamente eletto avrebbe preteso un aumento della propria influenza politica così come del proprio peso istituzionale. Attraverso le elezioni, i cittadini europei avrebbero potuto accrescere progressivamente il loro interesse nei confronti dei temi comunitari riuscendo a percepire meglio l'esistenza di un'istituzione fino ad allora poco conosciuta. Su questo aspetto federalisti e "gradualisti" si collocarono su posizioni discordanti, in quanto i primi da sempre consideravano il Parlamento eletto come "Congresso del popolo europeo" e quindi come il potere costituente della futura Federazione europea. Personalità di spicco sui singoli piani nazionali, costantemente impegnate nella causa dell'integrazione europea (solo per citare alcuni nomi si ricordano Altiero Spinelli, Simone Veil, Helmut Kohl, Jacques Chirac), oltre ad esponenti politici ed intellettuali che interpretarono un ruolo di forte influenza all'interno dei loro partiti riguardo alla scelta europeista (per l'Italia ricordiamo Giorgio Amendola, Enrico Berlinguer, Mauro Ferri, Gaetano Arfè), si impegnarono con l'intento di legittimarne il ruolo rispetto alle altre istituzioni, in particolar modo la Commissione. I parlamentari eletti nel primo suffragio universale diretto si trovarono quindi ad affrontare temi che andavano dalla questione dei paesi comunisti ai rapporti con il Terzo mondo, alla progettazione di una televisione europea fino alla necessità di redigere una prima bozza di Costituzione europea. Il ricorso alle candidature di personalità politiche ben note all'opinione pubblica quali Enrico Berlinguer, Simone Veil, Willy Brandt, si pensò potesse offrire un maggiore potenziale all'organizzazione della propaganda. La campagna elettorale del giugno 1979, così come le altre due successive, fu tuttavia caratterizzata, soprattutto in Italia e Francia, da argomenti troppo spesso collegati alla dialettica politica della propria nazione. In ogni caso l'informazione data ai cittadini europei fu in grado di suscitare un inevitabile interessamento ai problemi comunitari, ma soprattutto alla realtà sovranazionale. L'affluenza al voto fu comunque inferiore rispetto alle elezioni nazionali. Nei motivi della scarsa partecipazione al voto, oltre l'assenza di dibattito propriamente europeo vi fu anche il fatto che le strategie dei partiti tesero ad una sorta di strumentalizzazione delle elezioni europee, puntando attraverso le campagne elettorali al perseguimento di obiettivi nazionali. Il primo scrutinio diretto fu in grado comunque di dare una ventata di novità al concetto di democrazia europea. La nuova legittimità consentì al Parlamento di consolidare nel tempo i propri poteri e di interpretare un ruolo all'interno del processo decisionale comunitario che all'epoca poteva dirsi quanto meno "nebuloso". Una volta fissato il periodo di svolgimento delle prime elezioni, le forze politiche nazionali dovettero sostenere una sfida che le avrebbe costrette a rimettersi in gioco, cercando di rinnovare gli argomenti e i temi individuati per le campagne elettorali nazionali. Una maggiore consapevolezza riguardo alla necessità di allargare l'orizzonte, senza trascurare tuttavia il contatto con i propri elettori e cercando le possibili somiglianze con gli altri partiti europei, avrebbe consentito di conciliare la propria ideologia in un contesto più ampio. Occorre tener presente come tra il 1975 e il 1979 si fossero create all'interno dell'Assemblea parlamentare non eletta, formazioni politiche rappresentative di partiti accomunati da un orientamento affine a quello nazionale. La diversità di ideologie, tuttavia rendeva queste coalizioni molto deboli, soprattutto per via della tanto difficile integrazione ostacolata dalla predominanza degli interessi nazionali anteposti a quelli comunitari. La primazia dei partiti nazionali ha sempre costituito un ostacolo all'autonomia di azione dei gruppi e delle federazioni lasciando, fino ad oggi, inattuata la costituzione di veri e propri partiti europei. All'indomani del primo suffragio universale diretto, tuttavia, il nuovo parlamentare europeo avrebbe assunto il ruolo di trait d'union tra il proprio elettorato, il proprio partito, la coalizione europea e il Parlamento stesso. I tratti caratterizzanti il percorso politico-istituzionale del Parlamento europeo sono stati oggetto di approfondimento nello studio dei casi relativi ai tre Paesi considerati rivelando le differenze che, per la natura stessa del ruolo giocato nel contesto sovranazionale, non hanno risparmiato il processo di integrazione e, nel caso specifico, la partecipazione alle elezioni dirette del Parlamento. Accomunando Italia e Francia, paesi fondatori della Comunità europea che si dimostrarono troppo intenti a trattare temi nazionali durante le campagne elettorali, nel Regno Unito l'idea di Europa si coniugò con la costante valutazione di tutti gli elementi che sarebbero risultati convenienti per partecipare, senza che tutto ciò costringesse a modificare o rinunciare a quanto già in possesso, atteggiamento che trovò nella linea di governo di Margaret Thatcher una perfetta interpretazione durata per l'intero decennio esaminato. Se per il primo suffragio universale diretto l'attività maggiore fu quella di approntare nuovi metodi organizzativi per le campagne elettorali, adatti alla ricerca di un consenso più ampio, diretto a legittimare l'istituzione sovranazionale, nella seconda e terza tornata le riflessioni delle forze politiche si resero necessarie per cercare di individuare le cause del progressivo calo partecipativo. I difetti di una comunicazione politica spesso basata su issues nazionali, soprattutto riguardo la Francia, ha di sicuro rappresentato una delle possibili cause, ma l'atteggiamento stesso dei partiti, apparso frequentemente poco incline a credere seriamente nell'importanza delle elezioni, ha lasciato percepire incertezza ai cittadini europei. Per altro verso, anche le campagne elettorali comunitarie, sebbene abbiano investito molte risorse per cercare di catturare il consenso dell'opinione pubblica, hanno mostrato la parziale efficienza dei mezzi messi in atto. Elezioni di second'ordine quindi? E' possibile parlarne ancora in questi termini? Da quanto emerso nel corso della ricerca condotta sul versante storico-politologico, il livello delle elezioni europee non risulta affatto secondario. Il dato partecipativo, anzi è inversamente proporzionale alla quantità di lavoro preparatorio sia dal punto di vista politico che amministravo-istituzionale, ben superiore a qualsiasi suffragio nazionale. Ci si chiede allora perché gli elettori non abbiano risposto con altrettanto entusiasmo. Qui le risposte trovano differenti possibilità da tenere nella giusta considerazione: la poca attenzione ai temi comunitari, la qualità della comunicazione, l'errore di propagandare l'evento troppo a ridosso delle date di svolgimento, l'eccessiva distanza tra istituzioni e cittadini, il livello culturale degli elettori, i giorni della settimana individuati per i suffragi spesso troppo vicini ad elezioni nazionali appena svolte, la classe politica poco convinta. In realtà tutti questi fattori rappresentano concause della scarsa partecipazione. Il cittadino europeo in mezzo a questo guazzabuglio è il personaggio principale di una performance in cui lui stesso determina la riuscita. Nonostante i numeri evidenzino una progressiva flessione nei dieci anni esaminati, i cittadini non sono rimasti indifferenti di fronte alle novità introdotte dal processo di integrazione europea. Spesso, soprattutto durante i sondaggi, accanto ad una percentuale di "indifferenti" o "euroscettici", molti intervistati hanno lamentato la poca autorità del Parlamento europeo nel contesto istituzionale comunitario2 confidando in ulteriori progressi strutturali. Il mancato raggiungimento di questo obiettivo, preannunciato già prima del 1979, insieme alle vicende politiche legate al proprio Paese, ha gradualmente provocato negli elettori reazioni di protesta attraverso il non voto o il voto negativo3, comportamenti capaci di delineare una partecipazione differente rispetto alla decisione di esprimere la propria scelta. Questo tipo di elettore ha mostrato di essere stato raggiunto dall'informazione diffusa durante le campagne elettorali e, sulla base di quanto appreso, ha deciso consapevolmente di non votare o di esercitare un voto diverso annullando o votando scheda bianca; quindi si è recato ai seggi, 2 Si vedano a questo proposito i risultati emersi nella pubblicazione della Commissione delle Comunità europee, Eurobarometro – L'opinione pubblica nella Comunità europea, Vol.1, 32/89, Direzione generale Informazione, comunicazione e cultura, Bruxelles, 1989. 3 Cfr. A. Gianturco Gulisano, La fenomenologia del non voto, in R. De Mucci (a cura di), Election day. Votare tutti e tutto assieme fa bene alla democrazia?, cit. non è rimasto inerte disinteressandosi di quanto stava accadendo. L'auspicio di un consolidamento istituzionale del Parlamento e di una maggiore coesione politica della Comunità europea non ancora raggiunti, anche per responsabilità delle politiche nazionali, ha posto l'elettore in condizione di negare il proprio contributo o protestare verso il mancato conseguimento dei risultati. L'accrescimento della conoscenza e del coinvolgimento, sebbene presenti, non sono andati di pari passo con la partecipazione. Elementi di insoddisfazione hanno caratterizzato il comportamento dell'elettore realmente europeista. I cittadini europei possono in realtà collocarsi in tre macro aree nelle quali si ritrovano gli europeisti, gli euro avversi e gli euroscettici. Se le aspettative degli europeisti sono rimaste deluse, gli euroavversi hanno parzialmente esercitato il diritto di voto alimentando quelle liste comunque presenti nella competizione europea. Gli euroscettici, invece hanno rappresentato il punto nevralgico dell'elettorato. Trovandosi in quella parte di popolazione attenta ad osservare quali e quanti cambiamenti sarebbero avvenuti a partire dal 1979 hanno avuto modo di consolidare la loro posizione continuando a percepire la Comunità ancora lontana e prevalentemente scomoda se non inutile. A differenza dell'europeista deluso che comunque ha continuato a partecipare, magari protestando, e dell'euroavverso che ha espresso il suo disappunto preferendo i partiti antieuropeisti, l'euroscettico ha proseguito nell'osservazione, affiancandosi agli incerti che sono rimasti a casa. A questo punto sono apparse inevitabili ulteriori valutazioni verso quegli elementi che caratterizzano le elezioni in genere. Ciò che attrae il cittadino ai seggi elettorali è prevalentemente il peso che le elezioni possono esercitare sui cambiamenti del governo nel proprio Paese. Il "less at stake" delle elezioni europee ha rappresentato sicuramente uno dei motivi scatenanti i sentimenti appena descritti; lo scenario si profila diverso, In such 'marker-setting' elections, voters have an incentive to behave tactically, but in a sense of the word 'tactical' that is quite different from what we see in National elections, where large parties are advantaged by their size. In a markersetting election the tactical situation is instead characterized by an apparent lack of consequences for the allocation of power, on the one hand, and by the attentiveness of politicians and media, on the other4. La mancanza di conseguenze sul livello nazionale garantita dalle elezioni europee ha "alleggerito" l'elettore della responsabilità di orientare con la propria scelta il corso della politica nazionale. Sebbene nel 1979 vi fu un'attività partitica a livello transnazionale, consentita anche dalla disponibilità di fondi in quel periodo, l'attenzione dell'elettorato fu minima. In termini di risultati transnazionali la percezione fu praticamente irrilevante; circa il cinquanta per cento dei votanti ammise di non aver idea di quali gruppi avessero ottenuto maggiori consensi. Altro aspetto da non sottovalutare si collega allo sproporzionato successo ottenuto dai partiti più piccoli rispetto ai grandi; è in questo caso che si può parlare di voto punitivo nei confronti della politica del governo nazionale. Molte le sfaccettature e tutte fondamentali per riuscire a capire il perché delle differenze comportamentali dell'elettorato, differenze che nei tre Paesi oggetto di studio si sono rivelate estremamente rappresentate. In linea con la tradizione, gli elettori dell'Italia e della Francia hanno mostrato una partecipazione considerevole, evidentemente legata alle vicende che hanno caratterizzato il dibattito politico nazionale negli anni 1979 – 1989. Il voto "pseudo-obbligatorio" dell'Italia ha mantenuto alta la percentuale dei votanti, ma i risultati hanno mostrato orientamenti variabili nelle tre tornate esaminate. Il caso francese ha mostrato una escalation della destra attraverso i consensi ottenuti dal Front National in risposta ad un importante declino del Partito comunista, anche in considerazione di una progressiva dispersione di voti dovuta alla presenza di numerose liste, in particolar modo nel 1989. Il caso anglosassone si colloca in una posizione particolare rispetto agli altri due Paesi, ma sarebbe più giusto dire rispetto a tutti gli altri. A fronte di un orientamento nazionale tendenzialmente contrario alla Comunità europea, fra le ideologie maggiormente rappresentative si è distinto un Partito conservatore desideroso di giocare un ruolo importante nel contesto europeo, consapevole quindi del significato che la competizione europea 4 C. Van der Eijk, M. Franklin, M. Marsh, What voters teach us about Europe-Wide Elections: what Europe-Wide Elections teach us about voters, in "Electoral Studies", vol. 15, n. 2, p. 157. avrebbe potuto assumere per la riuscita dell'intento. L'importanza del suffragio sovranazionale non fu invece immediatamente compresa dai Laburisti, che di fatto ottennero una pesante sconfitta nel corso del primo appuntamento con lo scrutinio europeo, ravvedendosi in seguito e riuscendo a superare i Conservatori anche grazie all'inizio del declino del governo Thatcher. Un elemento che ha accomunato tutti i Paesi della Comunità è stato rappresentato dalla progressiva affermazione dei Verdi. Lo studio effettuato attraverso una costante attenzione al dibattito politico di ciascun Paese, insieme alle strategie attuate dagli attori, consapevoli fin dall'inizio che la sfida europea li avrebbe impegnati non più o meno di quella nazionale, ma sicuramente in modo diverso, ha condotto ad un approfondimento verso il singolo cittadino che assumendo in sé il ruolo di attore principale ne ha determinato gli esiti. Le risultanze dei dati emersi dalle consultazioni avvenute negli anni 1979 – 1989 non possono considerarsi soltanto per il puro dato numerico. La molteplicità dei fattori che hanno influito sulla scelta di votare o meno ha mostrato un elettore che, pur appartenendo a paesi diversi e con differenti livelli culturali, è stato in grado di decidere basandosi su considerazioni affatto superficiali, operando un'attenta scelta dei numerosi elementi che avrebbero potuto favorire il rafforzamento politico-istituzionale europeo: una tacita selezione dell'elettorato, che inevitabilmente ha lasciato fuori tutti coloro che non hanno ritenuto importante impegnarsi per una consultazione ritenuta priva di un qualsiasi tornaconto. Classe politica poco convinta, informazione discutibile, scarsa conoscenza da parte dei cittadini riguardo al ruolo del Parlamento europeo, inefficacia della comunicazione, hanno contribuito a costruire un elettore diverso dal solito, più attento, in possesso di maggiore senso critico nei confronti di uno scenario nuovo e molto più complesso rispetto a quello nazionale5. Dalla pluralità di elementi emersi durante la ricerca attraverso il ricorso all'interdisciplinarietà per cercare di comprenderne maggiormente i significati, sono emersi dettagli che hanno stimolato ad ulteriori approfondimenti. 5 Cfr. Commissione delle Comunità europee, Eurobarometro – L'opinione pubblica e l'Europa, 9/89, Direzione generale Informazione, comunicazione e cultura, Bruxelles, 1989. Successivamente alle considerazioni storico – politiche , ciò che si è voluto sottolineare, attraverso l'analisi sociologica, riguardo alle elezioni europee nel loro complesso e nella loro perpetua considerazione di elezioni secondarie, è che tutti i fattori esaminati ne mostrano un'immagine differente, che non vuole assolutamente porsi in contrasto con l'interpretazione dei dati puri, ma vuole indurre a considerare maggiormente i numerosi fattori, che per la qualità e la quantità riscontrata permettono di ottenere un quadro più completo dei fatti, andando oltre al mero dato partecipativo sul quale, indubbiamente, la differenza con la partecipazione nazionale è di tutta evidenza. L'esame approfondito è apparso ancor più necessario alla luce del tortuoso processo di costruzione europea e del macchinoso assetto istituzionale comunitario, al fine di poter tenere nella giusta considerazione il maggior numero di elementi possibile, non tanto per giustificare i risultati, ma quanto, piuttosto, per riflettere su di essi cercando di distribuire una responsabilità policentrica a partire dalle forze politiche per finire al cittadino stesso. ; Jacques Delors used to talk about European institutions as an O.P.N.I Object Politique Non Identifié. His opinion appears a compromise between his interest to protect National rights and the need to give lasting and autonomous governance to the European integration process. Actually from the European Community model, two different ways of thinking the governance derived both influenced by the instability of the model itself. The first one aimed at a political union; as Riccardo Perissich says: "Ai limitati trasferimenti di sovranità già decisi, altri ne sarebbero seguiti, anche se sempre in modo graduale. Coerentemente con questo approccio, le istituzioni avrebbero dovuto evolvere verso un modello classico. La Commissione si sarebbe trasformata in un esecutivo federale; il Consiglio dei ministri in un "Senato degli Stati"; l'Assemblea parlamentare in un vero Parlamento federale"6. The second one tried not to neglect the sovereignty principle by transferring technical and political power according to the Treaties. This second view increased doubts and mistrust towards the European Parliament and Commission as well. European Member States agreed above all with the first view, except for the France of Charles De Gaulle who was still convinced of his idea of not giving power to supranational level. Following the unification between ECSC, EEC and EAEC there was a single Commission for the whole administrative system while the Parliament had competence on the European budget; direct election to European Parliament was referred to as "temporary" in Article 138 of the European Community Treaty; then the Parliament would plan the way for a single procedure election regarding all Member States. Between 1951 and 1976 there were many proposals to define a direct universal suffrage, but only in 1979 this target was achieved. This result meant a significant change also for the polical and institutional 6R. Perissich, L'Unione Europea una storia non ufficiale, Milano, Longanesi, 2008, p.54. communication that became fundamental to reach citizenship during the election campaign. In 1974, during the French summit chaired by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, were both established the European Council and the direct election of the European Parliament. The European Parliament finally elected by European citizens would require an increase in both political and institutional influence. The direct elections would enhance popular interest in European affairs as well as raise people's awareness of the Parliament itself. This last aspect emphasized the differences between the federalist and the "gradualist" trend. The first one considered the direct elected Parliament as a "Congress of European People", that is to say the constituent power of the future European Federation. Many famous people were constantly engaged in the European integration cause as politicians and intellectuals did by committing themselves to legitimizing the role of the European Parliament in relation to other institutions, particularly the European Commission. Reference can be made to Altiero Spinelli, Enrico Berlinguer, Simone Veil, Helmut Kohl, Jacques Chirac, just to mention some of them. Members of the European Parliament (MEP's) began their job by addressing many issues such as the question of communist nations or planning for a European TV or preparing a draft for the European Constitution. Appointing political celebrities such as Enrico Berlinguer, Simone Veil, Willy Brandt was a way to make the propaganda more effective. The 1979 election campaign as well as the other two following ones was, however, characterized by arguments too often associated with the national political discourse. All the information given to European citizens succeeded in generating interest in supranational reality above all. The turnout was lower than in national elections and the reason has to be found in the behaviour of political parties in discussing mostly national issues aiming at national targets. In spite of this, the first direct election to the European Parliament gave a breath of fresh air to the meaning of European democracy. The newly acquired legitimacy gave the European Parliament the opportunity to consolidate its power by acting a definite role inside the European decisional process that was, at that time, nebulous to say the least. Once the electoral date was scheduled all the national political parties had to face a challenge that forced them to renew their themes and topics previously chosen in national campaign. There was greater awareness of the necessity to broaden the horizon without loosing contact with voters by looking for similarities in other European political parties. This is what would allow single ideologies to merge in a wider context. We must to consider that between 1975 – 1979 inside the European Parliament there were representatives of parties sharing outlooks similar to the national ones, but different ways of thinking made these coalitions too weak, above all because of the predominant national interests. The primacy of national parties has always been an obstacle to the autonomy of groups and federations, neglecting the implementation of European parties. After the first direct European elections the new MEP's were a kind of "trait d'union" with their own electorates, their own party, the European coalition and the Parliament as well. The peculiar features of the political-institutional path of the European Parliament concerning the three countries studied showed differences that have characterized their participation in European elections. While Italy and France, founding members of EC, were too busy to deal with national issues during electoral campaign, the UK was more attentive to evaluate the benefits of participation and Margaret Thatcher, who was Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990 was particularly suited for such an attitude. While during the first direct election there was a need to bring some new element in organizing the electoral campaign in order to reach a wider consensus, the following two elections made political forces more reflective about the decline in turnout. Too many national issues made the communication weak, particularly for the French campaign. What citizens perceived was the little confidence of political parties and that was the reason for such a large incertitude among the people. On the other hand, the Community campaign too showed a partial efficiency. So what kind of elections are we talking about? Still "second order" elections? This is not the picture that emerged from my research conducted on the historical and political fields. Participation is inversely proportional to the preparatory work, both from a political point of view and from an administrative-institutional one, which was far superior to any national suffrage. So, why didn't voters participate so enthusiastically? Many answers are possible because many are the causes of such an odd behaviour: little attention to European issues, quality of communication, propaganda too close to the election date, distance between citizens and istitution, the cultural level of voters, election dates too close to those of national elections, lack of confidence of the political class were all contributing factors in low participation. In the middle of this mess the European citizen becomes the protagonist for the success of such a performance. Despite numbers reveal a gradual decline in the ten years examined, European citizens have not remained indifferent to the changes introduced by the European integration process. Many surveys showed that in addition to a percentage of "indifferent" or "eurosceptical" people, there were citizens who asked for a stronger Parliament hoping that this result would be reached sooner or later. The failure to achieve this goal as well as the political events of each nation have gradually caused an outcry against the vote expressed either in nonvoting or in negative-vote; these different behaviours show a different way of participating . The voter who, though informed by the electoral campaign, decided not to vote or to give a different vote by cancelling his vote or returning blank−voting ballot, went nevertheless to the polling station and didn't stay at home ignoring what was happening. The unfullfilled hope for an institutional strengthening of the Parliament and for greater political cohesion of the European Community, due to political responsibilities, didn't allow the voter to contribute or protest against the non-achievement of results. Citizens' increased knowledge and involvement did not keep pace with the participation; some elements of dissatisfaction have characterized the behaviour of the pro-Europe voter. The three main groups in which European voters may be included are pro- Europe, anti-Europe and eurosceptics. Whereas the pro-Europe voters' expectations have been disappointed, the anti-Europe voters have partially exercised the right to vote feeding this kind of lists in the European competition. Eurosceptics, on the other hand were the centerpiece of the electorate. Being careful observers of which and how many changes have occurred since 1979, citizens have been able to consolidate their position by continuing to perceive the Community as still too distant and mostly uncomfortable if not useless. They have continued their observation by standing together with those uncertain people who stayed at home. At this point it appeared inevitable to assess also those elements that characterized the elections in general. What attracts people to the polling station is mainly the weight that elections may have on the governmental changes in their own countries. The "less at stake" of European elections surely showed one of the reasons just described. We are therefore facing a different context, In such 'marker-setting' elections, voters have an incentive to behave tactically, but in a sense of the word 'tactical' that is quite different from what we see in National elections, where large parties are advantaged by their size. In a markersetting election the tactical situation is instead characterized by an apparent lack of consequences for the allocation of power, on the one hand, and by the attentiveness of politicians and media, on the other7. The lack of consequences on the national level where European elections are concerned lightened voters by taking away their responsibility in directing the national political course. Although in 1979 there was a political activity at the transnational level, the electorate's attention was very scarce. The result showed 50% of voters admitting to their disinformation about the groups that achieved greater consensus. 7 C. Van der Eijk, M. Franklin, M. Marsh, What voters teach us about Europe-Wide Elections: what Europe-Wide Elections teach us about voters, in "Electoral Studies", vol. 15, n. 2, p. 157. Another issue is the large success gained by smaller parties; in this case it is possible to talk about a "punishment vote" against the policy of the national government. The three cases studied showed different ways of participating. Italian and French voters showed a considerable participation according to their tradition also because in the 1979 – 1989 period there was an interesting political debate. The Italian "pseudo-compulsory" vote kept the percentage of voters high, but the outcome showed changing directions during the above mentioned period. Looking at the outcomes got by the Front National the French case showed an escalation of the Right next to to a significant decline of the Communist Party. There was also a substantial dispersion of voting because of so many rolls, particularly during the 1989 elections. The British case is a special one for the particular behaviour towards the European integration process. The Conservative Party wanted to play an important role in the European context and for this reason European elections were considered as a way to succeed in it. On the contrary the Labour Party did not immediately understand the importance of such a crucial opportunity; the outcome of the 1979 European elections was disastrous and they met an evident defeat that therefore was useful to understand many things for future elections. All three countries have seen the progressive growth of the Green Party. The present study has paid constant attention to to the political debate in each country, and to the strategies implemented by the actors, who were aware from the beginning that the European challenge would engage them in different ways. It was, moreover, focused on the individual citizen's ability to determine the election outcome. Considering the outcome through the mere numerical data gives a partial view of the whole context. There are so many aspects that influenced the decision to vote or not. There was a selection among voters that showed citizens who desired a more political union operating a political and institutional strengthening in opposition to those who did not want to engage themselves in an election without any gain. An unconvinced political class, questionable information, lack of knowledge among citizens about the role of the European Parliament have built a different voter, a more attentive one, with a greater critical sense towards a newer context different from the national one. The diverse elements which have emerged from this interdiciplinary study have led to further insights. After historical considerations, a sociological analysis has been carried out on European elections as a whole and their "second order" perception. From these considerations a new picture has emerged, which is not in absolute contrast with the interpretation of the raw data. The quality and the quantity of so many factors allow a more complete picture of the facts, going beyond the mere participation on which, undoubtedly, the difference with the national presence is quite evident. Detailed examination appeared necessary in the light of the tortuous European building process, in order to take into account as many elements as possible, not only to justify the results, but rather because, to reflect on them trying to deploy a polycentric responsibility from the political forces to the citizens themselves.

 Draft Translation: Not for CitationWhat follows is another attempt at a translation of an important text by André Tosel on the Marx/Spinoza relation. It is not a finished, or polished translation, but a rough sketch put forward to help people get a sense of this overlooked articulation of the relation between Marx and Spinoza.For a Systematic Study of the Relation of Marx to Spinoza: Remarks and Hypotheses

André Tosel Published in 2008 in the book Spinoza au XIXe Siècle  The question of relation of the thought of Marx to that of Spinoza has up until now been the subject of more of a hermeneutic investigation than a philology. It is easier to construct a history of the different interpretations of Spinoza at the center of different Marxisms then to have determined the precise function of the reference to Spinoza in the work of Marx and to define the use Marx made of the spinozist problematic and the elaboration of his thought.  More or less the Marxists that were first developed a relation to Spinoza were an important milestone on the way to developing what could be called a historical and materialist dialectic. The relation begins in the midst of the Second International. The singularity of Spinoza's thought has often been reduced to a stepping stone on the way to "monist" immanentism, which is supposed to be its philosophical structure at least in the reception of two thinkers, as Plekhanov has asserted in some preliminary texts working from some notes of Engels in manuscripts published in the USSR under the title of the Dialectic of Nature. In the dogmatic frame of the struggle between idealism and materialism, Spinoza anticipates materialism by his thesis of the unity of nature and by his doctrine of the equal dignity of the attribute of extension in relation to the attribute of thought. The doctrine of mode and substance causality, coupled with the critique of final causality and the illusions of superstition, signifies at the same time an overcoming of mechanistic thinking and the first form of the dialectic. Rare were those who, like Antonio Labriola, were careful not to oppose two conceptions of the world head-on and maintained a certain distance with polemical opposition, preferring instead to indicate that Marx did for mode of production what Spinoza had done for the world of the passions—a geometry of their production. In the Soviet Union before the Stalinist freeze, this interpretive tension is reproduced: Spinoza becomes the terrain through which the clarification of the dialectic takes place opposing mechanists and anti-mechanists, and original articulation of the thesis of liberty as the comprehension of necessity. These problems have been clarified somewhat. (Zapata, 1983; Seidel, 1984; Tosel, 1995)One would have to wait for the deconstructive enterprise of Louis Althusser for this movement to be reversed. Spinoza is no longer a moment in the teleology which is integrated and surpassed on the way to Marxism-Leninism. His work is the means of theoretical production for reformulating the philosophical and scientific revolution of Marx without recourse to only the Hegelian dialectic. Spinoza is the first to have elaborated a model of structural causality that makes it possible to think the efficacy of the structure as an absent cause over its effects. The theory of knowledge is not one that authorizes absolute knowledge, but it announces this infinite exigency of a break with ideology without the hope of arriving at transparent knowledge. It obliges one to renounce any idea of communism as a state of a final reconciliation in social relations which would be deprived of any contradictions. "We have always been spinozists,' Althusser announces in the Elements of Self-Criticism, and then proceed to the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect from the Hegelian dialectic. It is then only an epistemological obstacle which prevents Marx from realizing the full power of his critique of political economy and to explore the continent of history that he discovered. Spinoza for clarifying Marx himself. Everything has been clarified. (Cotten 1992; Raymond, Moreau, 1997).  In terms of historical research, the spinozist studies that have been made after the end of the nineteen sixties in France and Italy have often been made by researchers who have rubbed shoulders with Marxism. We find the same oscillation between a tendency to read Spinoza according to a pre-marxist perspective, in the sense of a dialectic of emancipation, or liberation from a theological political complex and disalienation, even constituent power, and another tendency insisting on the infinity of the struggle against all illusions, even those of total liberation, affirming the unsurpassable dimension of the imagination in the constitution of the conatus and in the production of the power of the multitude. This oscillation is manifest often in the same commentators, often itself a function of the change of the historical conjuncture. However, up until now, there has never been an attempt to study from Marx's works themselves the structural function of the spinozist reference in the constitution of Marxist theory, one which would permit us to better understand the understanding that Marx made of Spinozist work. The interpretations have anyway have developed from a certain exteriority to the letter of Marxists texts.  Several years ago, a German researcher, Fred E. Schrader, in a short text dedicated to the thematic of "substance and concept" chez Marx (Substanz und Funktion: zur Marxsrezeption Spinoza's) drew attention to this situation (1984). He rightly noted that it was necessary to distinguish two moments in the research to avoid any merely external confrontation: a) first, obviously, document the explicit and implicit mentions of Spinoza in Marx's text; 1) then, reconstruct the position of the reference to Spinoza in the process of the constitution of the critique of political economy which is the central Marxist work, alongside of the references to "Hegel" which one knows were constitutive in the years of 1857-1858. Only this philological and philosophical work can permit us to renew the state of the question.
Schrader's study must be considered. We propose to develop it and comment on it because up until now it has not received the attention that it merits. Before everything else, it is necessary to be precise. The work envisioned must be considerable, it includes taking into account the texts published by Marx, those published posthumously by Engels and by Kautsky, and all of those—collections of notes and thematic notebooks—which make up the incomplete nature of Capital, including Marx's correspondence. The MEGA 2, Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe, still incomplete, has not finished being scrutinized. This work could begin from the hypothesis that we can conceptualize two periods in Marx's work from which it is possible to reassemble occurrences that conceptualize the reference to Spinoza in order to determine their structural function. The first period corresponds to the years of his formation and the interlinking of the critique of politics and the early critique of political economy, it begins with the concept of history underlying the German Ideology and culminates in the Poverty of Philosophy and the Communist Manifesto. The second period begins with the research operating under the title of the critique of political economy beginning in 1857, interrupted provisionally in January of 1859 and beginning again in 1861. The reference to Spinoza is more explicit in the first period where it is a matter of an specifically political practice, articulating a materialism of practice. It is less explicit in the second period, it functions nonetheless as a fundamental operator in the essential theory of the substance of value in capital. The Philosophical Intensifier of Spinoza of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Destruction of the Theologico-Political Complex and Democratic Radicalism.  Marx encounters Spinoza in the beginning of his theoretical and political journey. In 1841 we know from the preface by Alexandre Matheron (Cahiers Spinoza), Marx, after his doctorate, reproduced the extracts he copied from the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (MEGA 2 VI/I Berlin, 1977). He is curiously presented as the author of these texts and moreover they are reorganized in their own order which is not that of the Tractatus itself. The chapters containing the critique of the supernatural, of the miracle, and all of all forms of superstition are brought forward as essential and open on the properly political chapters dedicated to the freedom of thought (XX) and the foundation of the republic (XVI). The Ethics is not ignored but it is not reproduced, Letter XII takes the place of a speculative text and is accompanied with Letter LXXVI to Burgh. Everything takes place as if Marx considered as the most important question to be that of theological politics and is concentrated on the question of human freedom in its radical ethico-political dimension. What is important is that the revolutionary democratic state is realized according to this concept.  One could also consider that Spinoza is utilized here as one of the figures that a Doctorate of Philosophy considers along with Aristotle, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel as provocations, of that which puts knowledge in the service of a life liberated from the fear of authorities, which reappropriates humanity's power of thinking and acting confiscated in the service of gods and fetishes. In a certain manner Epicurus is the paradoxically the first of the thinkers who claims that "it is a misfortune to live in necessity, but it is not necessary to live under necessity." This truth finds a new application, after the French Revolution, in the age of a new ethics, where free individuals recognize themselves in a free state.  2. The explicit reference to Spinoza is displaced in the texts of the years 1841-1843—the Kreuznach manuscript dedicated to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, followed by the introduction and the Jewish Question. These constitute the Feuerbachian moment of Marx, at the heart of his theory of the alienation of the human essence. One must not make this critique of politics a simple transition towards the discovery of the alienation of social powers, nor understand it as an end of a politics understood as primarily statist. It is the ethico-political liberation which requires a transformation of social relations and which is a transvaluation or emancipation of social powers. Spinoza is not named, but certain passages from the TTP are repeated almost to the letter: Spinoza figures as the index of a new task , that is lacking in Hegel which is that of thinking beyond the dualism of civil society and the state. The name of this passage is democracy or true democracy. Marx returns to the letter of the Spinozist thesis according to which democracy is not only the name of a constituted political regime, but the essence of politics, the most natural regime, constituting the power of the people. The intensive force of Spinoza is that of democracy not as a mystical act or utopian ecstasy, but as a process of constitution that replaces actual void of the Hegelian state where the people lack themselves, in which the state becomes something separate, still theologico-political. Democracy is the active process by which the people is refigured as the negative instance of any separate political form and gives a political form to its social power. "Democracy is the truth of monarchy, monarchy is not the truth of democracy. Monarchy is necessarily democracy in contradiction with itself, whereas the monarchial moment is no contradiction within democracy. Monarchy cannot, while democracy can be understood in terms of itself In democracy none of the moments obtains a significance other than what befits it. Each is really only a moment of the whole Demos. In monarchy one part determines the character of the whole; the entire constitution must be modified according to the immutable head. Democracy is the generic constitution; monarchy is a species, and indeed a poor one. Democracy is content and form; monarchy should be only form, but it adulterates the content.
In monarchy the whole, the people, is subsumed under one of its modes of existence,. the political constitution; in democracy the constitution itself appears only as one determination, and indeed as the self-determination of the people. In monarchy we have the people of the constitution, in democracy the constitution of the people. Democracy is the resolved mystery of all constitutions. Here the constitution not only in itself, according to essence, but according to existence and actuality is returned to its real ground, actual man, the actual people, and established as its own work. The constitution appears as what it is, the free product of men." It is possible to remark that this constituent power of the demos tends to be presented as a sort of causa sui in the order of world of social relations. The naturalist dimension thematized in the Ethics is not posited here with the insistence of humanity as part of nature, with the thematization of the relations between internal and external causality. Necessity seems to have disappeared for an instant. It is notable that this in the same moment that Feuerbach defends Spinoza's naturalism against Hegelian idealism and makes the author of the Ethics the Moses of modern thought who has destroyed theology by his pantheism, while reproaching him, for not having arrived at a radical humanist affirmation, since he maintained an equivocal equivalence between the naturalization of god and the divinization of nature. The Marxist reference is primarily to the ethico-political Spinoza, one of the "intellectual heroes of morality" as he says in a text contemporary with it, "Comments on the Latest Russian Censorship—" along with Kant and Fichte he is one of the heroes that found and defend the principal of moral autonomy. Spinoza makes it possible to undertake a philosophical political of Hegel, the people would be the only ontological instance that constitutes the political constitution, which is to say democracy, of civil society. Spinoza makes it possible to introduce a new dialectic within the incomplete dialectic of The Principles of the Philosophy of Right. This dialectic is simultaneously a critique. The object of this critical dialectic is the self-constitution of political activity in the struggle to overcome the domination of abstract entities erected into speculative abstractions defining the latest avatars of the theological-political complex.  Schrader does not say more in the exposition of the reference to Spinoza in this first period. We could take a step beyond his analysis. A unpublished path seems to be presented. We could in fact explore it as Yovel has done (Spinoza and Other Heretics); also the first book of Matheron, Individu et communauté chez Spinoza (1968) examines the double relation of the human conatus to other conatuses and objects that suit them or do not suit them the rudiments of a theory of objectification of the human essence that Marx elaborates in the texts of 1844 where he analyzes the people under the figure of the proletariat subject and object of alienated labor. The reading can shed light on Spinoza, but Marx has for his interlocuters Hegel, Adam Smith, and Feuerbach. Spinoza does not intervene here explicitly. It is preferable to follow the letter of his texts.  3. The text which follows, The Holy Family of 1845, indicates an unexamined reversal of perspective. Far from finding in Spinoza a radical thinker of liberty through the radicalization of the democratic process and developing Feuerbach's theses of the virtues of Spinoza's naturalization, far from continuing the anti-idealist elements of Spinoza, Marx for the first time distances himself from Spinoza placing him on the side of Descartes, of Malebranche, of Leibniz, of abstract rationalist metaphysics, in a paragraph before celebrating the materialists in which he inscribes himself. These are the materialists of the French Enlightenment, La Mettrie, Holbach, Helvétius, which are lauded for having operated outside of metaphysics. These are the authors that Plekhanov reinscribes as a defenders of monistic materialism in the thought of nature and in the theory of history. Certainly as Olivier Bloch in an important contribution has demonstrated ("Materialism, genesis of Marxism, 1981, reprinted in Matières à penser, Vrin, 1997), this chapter of the history of philosophy is a plagiarism by Marx who literally takes it from the Manuel d'histoire de la philosophie moderne by Charles Renouvier (1844). The soviet Diamat has been founded by a French critic… But the fact remains that Marx endorses this reconstruction which prefers Bacon, Hobbes and Locke to Spinoza, lauding them for the empiricism and nominalism: the English thinkers critique metaphysic speculation and open directly the way to materialism. Pierre Bayler in France can be considered the only fellow traveler of British empiricism by his scepticism he dissolves the metaphysics of Spinoza and Leibniz (The Holy Family, 171).  The Spinoza criticized here is that of the Ethics understood as a dogmatic treatise of metaphysics which has a "profane content" but it has lost its historical condition. This is no longer the antitheological political Spinoza but the speculative philosopher. Is it necessary to conclude that this is a contradiction on the part of Marx and to forget his previous theses? It is a surprising oversight because that which Marx and Renouvier give credit to Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke can be imputed to Spinoza as well. Everything takes place as if Marx, put off by the metaphysics of the Ethics forgets what he had found in the TTP—and this seems to be a permanent transformation. In fact the contradiction is not only apparent, or, more to the point, it concerns Spinoza himself. Marx does not have as his object an analysis of Spinozism. He uses the latter by breaking it down according to the needs of his task which is at this moment is to study the activity of real man and the possibility of his transformation by bringing together the theoretical humanism of Feuerbach, the French communism and socialism, and the English thinkers who represent this humanism in the domain of practice. "[Metaphysics] will be defeated for forever by materialism which has now been perfected by the work of speculation itself and coincides with humanism. As Feuerbach represented materialism in the theoretical domain, French and English socialism and communism represent materialism in the practical field which now coincides with humanism." (The Holy Family, pg. 168) One can detect in this passage the presence of a schematic of the history of modern philosophy which has echoes of Moses Hess and Ludwig Feuerbach, the two have confronted the problem of the critical comprehension of Hegel and have begun to present a reinterpretation of the grand moments of the history of philosophy after their master.  Marx deviates from the interpretation of Hess given in a text which had a particular impact: The Sacred History of Mankind by a Young Disciple of Spinoza (1838). Hess appropriates Spinoza's theory of knowledge and exploits his theory of the imagination to develop a positive sense of social utopia, and overall makes Spinoza the true alternative to Hegel's Christian philosophy. Far from being an acosmism, the theory of substance is the perfect incarnation of the Hebraic idea of the unconditional unity of all. It is paradoxical, the other part, of the interpretation by Renouvier followed by Marx recovers and conceals that of Feuerbach that one can find in the same period in Preliminary Theses for the Reform of Philosophy (1842) and Principles of the Philosophy of the Future (1843). Marx brushes up against these theses of Feuerbach on Spinoza without reproducing them in their entirety. They make Spinoza an important moment in modern philosophy: at the heart of this movement they make this philosophy an important realization of the humanization of God, Spinoza remains still a speculative philosopher who is at once produces the realization and negation of God. Speculative metaphysics realizes with him its ultimate phase which is determined contradictorily as theism and atheism in the form of pantheism. "Spinoza is the originator of speculative philosophy, Schelling its restorer, Hegel its perfecter."(Thesis 102) Pantheism becomes the only consequential theology in that it anticipates the end of theology in atheism. The Spinozist substance transforms all independent beings into predicates, into attributes of a unique and independent being. God is no longer only a thing thought, it is equally an extended thing (Thesis 3). Spinoza does not make the self-activity of self-consciousness the attribute that unifies and transforms substance into subject. This was Hegel's tour de force but he paid for it with an absolute idealism of spirit since once again spirit prevails over extension and concrete man is subject to abstraction separated from reality of self-consciousness.
This inscription of Spinoza in metaphysics is all the more paradoxical because Marx finds in empiricism and British materialism the theses that Feuerbach attributes to Spinoza, and Marx accepts a definition in which materialism coincides with communism. As can be seen in this passage from Principles of the Philosophy of the Future  Pantheism is theological atheism or theological materialism; it is the negation of theology while itself confined to the standpoint of theology, for it turns matter, the negation of God, into a predicate or an attribute of the Divine Being. But he who turns matter into an attribute of God, declares matter to be a divine being. The realisation of God must in principle presuppose godliness, that is, the truth and essentiality of the real. The deification of the real, of that which exists materially – materialism, empiricism, realism, and humanism – or the negation of theology, is the essence of the modern era. Pantheism is therefore nothing more than the essence of the modern era elevated into the divine essence, into a religio-philosophical principle. Empiricism or realism – meaning thereby the so-called sciences of the real, but in particular the natural science – negates theology, albeit not theoretically but only practically, namely, through the actual deed in so far as the realist makes the negation of God, or at least that which is not God, into the essential business of his life and the essential object of his activity. However, he who devotes his mind and heart exclusively to that which is material and sensuous actually denies the trans-sensuous its reality; for only that which constitutes an object of the real and concrete activity is real, at least for man. "What I don't know doesn't affect me." To say that it is not possible to know anything of the supersensuous is only an excuse. One ceases to know anything about God and divine things only when one does not want to know anything about them. How much did one know about God, about the devils or angels as long as these supersensuous beings were still objects of a real faith? To be interested in something is to have the talent for it. The medieval mystics and scholastics had no talent and aptitude for natural science only because they had no interest in nature. Where the sense for something is not lacking, there also the senses and organs do not lack. If the heart is open to something, the mind will not be closed to it. Thus, the reason why mankind in the modern era lost the organs for the supersensuous world and its secrets is because it also lost the sense for them together with the belief in them; because its essential tendency was anti-Christian and anti-theological; that is, anthropological, cosmic, realistic, and materialistic. [In the context of the present work, the differences between materialism, empiricism, realism, and humanism are, of course, irrelevant.] Spinoza hit the nail on the head with his paradoxical proposition: God is an extended, that is, material being. He found, at least for his time, the true philosophical expression for the materialistic tendency of the modern era; he legitimated and sanctioned it: God himself is a materialist. Spinoza's philosophy was religion; he himself was an amazing man. Unlike so many others, Spinoza's materialism did not stand in contradiction to the notion of a non-material and anti-materialistic God who also quite consistently imposes on man the duty to give himself up only to anti-materialistic, heavenly tendencies and concerns, for God is nothing other than the archetypal and ideal image of man; what God is and how he is, is what man ought to be or wants to be, or at least hopes to be in the future. But only where theory does not belie practice, and practice theory, is there character, truth, and religion. Spinoza is the Moses of modern free-thinkers and materialists. 4. The anti-metaphysical fury of Marx, the blind submission to Renouvier, limits him in developing an interpretation of the Ethics more nuanced and sensitive to the historical contradictions. This situation is even more strange because it is in The Holy Family that Marx interprets materialist philosophers such that they are a Feuerbachian Spinoza. On can find then three theses that Marx distributes to different representatives of materialism and that can also be imputed to Spinoza. --Thesis 1. Nature is a primary reality, it can be explained by itself without recourse to the principle of a creator. Nothing comes from nothing. One can then have recourse to Bacon for who "the primitive forms of matter are essentially living forms, individuals, and it is they that produce specific differences." He follows, as does Hobbes, in adding that "one cannot separate thought from the matter which thinks." Thought cannot be separated from matter capable of thought.  --Thesis 2. The human order is inscribed in a specific manner in nature. This specificity does not specify anything extra-worldly of human activity. Hobbes has demonstrated the sensible nature of activity. "Man is subordinate to the same laws that nature. Power and liberty are identical." The Holy Family) This order is known to promote the art of forming ideas, the human species is fundamentally educatable. ---Thesis 3. What is important is to think the constitution of this human order according to radical possibilities of the ways of transforming these necessary conditions of experience of liberty-power. "If man is unfree in the materialist sense, i.e., is free not through the negative power to avoid this or that, but through the positive power to assert his true individuality,
crime must not be punished in the individual, but the anti-social source of crime must be destroyed, and each man must be given social scope for the vital manifestation of his being. If man is shaped by his surroundings, his surroundings must be made human. If man is social by
nature, he will develop his true nature only in society, and the power of his nature must be measured not by the power of separate individuals but by the power of society." (The Holy Family 176).  It is not necessary to give the history of philosophy presented in The Holy Family a structural importance. It acts as a provisionally constructed polemical text where Marx has given the means for his own philosophical conception in broad strokes in order to better understand the intersection of humanism, materialism, and communism. The incongruence of the treatment of Spinoza, reinterpreted to be behind Feuerbach's position, was not overlooked by Marx's comrades in combat since H. Krieg (himself denounces by Marx in a virulent circular as a confused partisan of religious socialism), he wrote in a letter of June 6, 1845 in order to restore Spinoza's battle against metaphysics overlooked by Marx, "you're probably right about what it says in the English Hobbes and Locke [i.e. that they vacillate contradictorily between materialism and theism], the same for Voltaire and his direct partisans; but Holbach is practically Spinozist, and it is with and Diderot that the Enlightenment reaches its summit and becomes revolutionary." (cited by Maximilien Rubel and his edition of the philosophical texts of Marx titled Philosophie) 5. The instrumental and fluctuating character of the reference to Spinoza as a metaphysician is confirmed precisely by The German Ideology. Marx returns in passing to the place of Spinoza in modern philosophy. Spinoza has developed the principle of substantial immanence but he has not integrated the principle with self-consciousness. Hegel would be the unity of Spinoza and Fichte (The German Ideology, 107). But for Marx this representation consigns him to a partial aspect of the Hegelian synthesis. Self-consciousness is at once a hypostasis of the real activity of human beings in the process of their self-production and the "the real consciousness of the social relations in which they appear to exists and to which they appear to be autonomous." In a similar manner substance is "an ideal hypostatized expression of the world as it exists" that is take as the foundation of the world "existing for itself." Marx returns to Feuerbach for clarification of substance and it anthropological resolution. We do not know much more, but the text seems to distinguish the Hegelian critique of substance and its possible materialist significance as "the existing world." We would have expected considerations on the immanence of modes in natura naturans and of their dynamic interdetermination.
In any case, Marx refuses the young Hegelain opposition between self-consciousness and substance, and proposes to maintain the category of substance as an inseparable unity of the existing mode and the beings which constitute the world in the play of their relations. Marx's criticism has as its target the mystification of self-consciousness and its anti-substantial phobia. Everything takes place as if the ontological categories of Spinoza up until now rejected as conservative metaphysics have an intensive force irreducible to the critique of the young Hegelians. However, it remains that in this complex itinerary the use value of the reference to Spinoza is concentrated in the theological political constellation and the political constitution of the political force of social force. This reference becomes the presupposition of the materialist conception of history, but it does not intervene in the texture of these concepts.  The Spinoza Reference in the Critique of Political Economy, Substance and Concept Returning to Schrader and his propositions for the study of the second moment of the reference to Spinoza, that of the Marxist use of Spinozist concepts from the Ethics in the development of the critique of political economy in the development of Capital. Schrader pays particular attention to the reappearance in the margins of the reference to Spinoza in the period of the creation and exposition of the critique of political economy which is developed from 1851 to 1863. An important letter from Marx to Lassale from May 31, 1858 which was published in an obscure book on Heraclitus, gives to Spinoza's metaphysics the same status that he gave to Hegel in a famous letter to Engels a few months before.  Even among philosophers who give a systematic form to the works, as for example Spinoza, the true inner structure of the system is quite unlike the form in which it was consciously presented. The true system is only present in itself. (Marx MEW, 29, Berlin, 1963, 561).

What was of great use to me as regards method of treatment was Hegel's Logic at which I had taken another look by mere accident... If ever the time comes when such work is again possible, I should very much like to write 2 or 3 sheets making accessible to the common reader the rational aspect of the method which Hegel not only discovered but also mystified. (Correspondence Marx-Engels)  Marx makes it clear that the elaboration of the critique passes through the utilization of elements of philosophical works which others appear to have completely bypassed. The presence of Hegel is the center of the interpretation of Capital. It would appear certain to this period that Marx no longer takes inspiration from the Feuerbachian critique of abstract speculation. In this case, the Idea separated from its contents generates the latter in a mystified way by legitimizing the crudest aspects, losing the benefit of seizing the real as a contradictory process, as is explained in The Holy Family or The Poverty of Philosophy. Hegel is from now on solicited for his dialectical discoveries: he elaborates the dialectic as an immanent process of thought and his discoveries serve Marx in developing his proper critique. The presence of Hegel in the period up to the publication of the first volume of Capital in 1867, in passing through diverse manuscripts of 1857-1858 (The Grundrisse) and the manuscripts from 1861-1863, has been attested to and demonstrated by works, either to reaffirm the heretical Hegelianism of Marx, (Rosdolsky, Reichelt, Zelenyi, all dedicated to research the logic of Capital, all following one of the most famous injunctions of all times, Lenin in the Notes on Dialectics) or to combat it in order to argue that Marx was Hegelian or anti-Hegelian (Althusser, and Bidet in his famous study, The Making of Marx's Capital).
This usage of Hegel consists essentially in using the categories of logic to expose the theoretical structure of the passages which operate from the commodity to value, from money as the measure of value to money as the means of exchange and as the universal means of payment, from money to capital. Schrader proposes the following recovery of the Marxist exposition of Hegelian categories: --Exchange value and the form of value correspond to the pure quantity of Hegel: this value and its measure is realized as money. The Marxist measure of value adopts the Hegelian determinations of the quantitative relations and their measure. --The circulation of commodities and money is described by the concepts of an infinite qualitative and quantitative process.  --Finally the passage from money to capital transposes the passage from being to essence. Marx has thus read and reused these conceptual determinations for the diverse functions of commodity, value, money and circulation.  And what about Spinoza? According to Schrader, he intervenes to resolve a logical problem that is at this point unresolved, that of the determination of the concept of capital supposed to integrate the logically preceding determinations. In good Hegelianism, Marx has made the movement of capital that of the essence of the concept. When Marx maintains that exchange value is realized in the circulation of other substances, in an indefinite totality, without losing the determination of its form, always remaining money and commodities, he makes capital the totality of substances. However, it thus impossible to maintain the internal connection between capital and labor, and more precisely abstract labor. Spinoza intervenes to make possible another use of the category of substance: that would not have its function to subsume the plurality of all substances, but to determine the quality of the fluent quantity that defines abstract labor.  One can see this in the text of Volume One of Capital, revised by Marx in 1873 for the French translation of J. Roy. The category of substance is introduce in the passage from the commodity to its determination as the contradictory unity of use value and exchange value. The exchange of commodities is only possible if the their values are "expressed in terms of something common to them all, of which thing they represent a greater or less quantities." This something is a substance specific to all commodities. "This common "something" cannot be either a geometrical, a chemical, or any other natural property of commodities…[] it is evident that one makes an abstraction from use value when one exchanges, and that the relation of exchange is characterized by this abstraction (Capital). Exchange and the production process which supports it operate this real abstraction from the useful qualities of the objects to be exchanged. This utility, although necessary, does not render possible the exchange of objects of value insofar as they products of labor. Exchange concerns the objects considered as products of labor.  If then we leave out of consideration the use value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labour. But even the product of labour itself has undergone a change in our hands. If we make abstraction from its use value, we make abstraction at the same time from the material elements and shapes that make the product a use value; we see in it no longer a table, a house, yarn, or any other useful thing. Its existence as a material thing is put out of sight. Neither can it any longer be regarded as the product of the labour of the joiner, the mason, the spinner, or of any other definite kind of productive labour. Along with the useful qualities of the products themselves, we put out of sight both the useful character of the various kinds of labour embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labour; there is nothing left but what is common to them all; all are reduced to one and the same sort of labour, human labour in the abstract.  Capitalism cannot be grasped as a subject enveloping the totality of the process of the development. It is no longer a simple quantity in indefinite expansion. It is thought as the "social substance of as exchange values." This substance can be determined as capital, but it goes beyond this process of determination by constituting a remainder, a "residue" that constantly reappears. "Let us now consider the residue of each of these products; it consists of the same unsubstantial reality in each, a mere congelation of homogeneous human labour, of labour power expended without regard to the mode of its expenditure. All that these things now tell us is, that human labour power has been expended in their production, that human labour is embodied in them. When looked at as crystals of this social substance, common to them all, they are – Values." The concept of Capital is not that of the concept of substance becoming subject., it returns to the concept of social substance defined as abstract labor creator of value, substance of value, and substance which increases value: purely progressive quantity reduced to its infinity which is a true infinity irreducible to the logic of bad infinity, that of capital which nonetheless subsumes it.  However it is said that this reconstruction does not rest on an explicit reference to Spinoza. The objection is well founded. Schrader responds that it is Marx who reread Hegel and saw that the formal system of Spinoza could be used against Hegel critique of the concept of substance in the Logic. It is a matter of the problem of determination. Omnis determination negatio, Marx keeps reminding everyone of this. If it is Hegel who validates Spinoza's judgement by demonstrating its insufficiency which for Marx transforms into a sufficient truth to permit him to avoid identifying capital with the Hegelian concept. Capital can increase its reality only by determining this social substance of abstract labor, by negating it. The tendency of capital, its ideal, is the absolute negation of this substance. Marx makes the insufficiency of Spinoza's substance according to Hegel into a virtue.  In the Logic the principle according to which determination is negation is recognized as essential. But Spinoza, according to Hegel, remains with determination as limit which is founded on an other being. The mode is in another from which it derives its being but this other is in itself. It is the integral concept of all realities. But its immanence is only apparent. Each mode negates each other, determination of each is the result of the determined negation of all of the others. Far from determining itself in these negations, substance is negated in its absolute indifference. It does not reflect itself in these negations no more than they reflect it. The Spinozist principle does not arrive at absolute negation that it anticipates contradictorily. The substance is posed by an external reflection which compromises the otherwise affirmed subsistence of the determinations which become an effervescent moment (attributes and modes). This can be read in the texts from The Science of Logic dedicated to Spinoza.  "Of this proposition that determinateness is negation, the unity of Spinoza's substance — or that there is only one substance — is the necessary consequence. Thought and being or extension, the two attributes, namely, which Spinoza had before him, he had of necessity to posit as one in this unity; for as determinate realities they are negations whose infinity is their unity. According to Spinoza's definition, of which we say more more subsequently, the infinity of anything is its affirmation. He grasped them therefore as attributes, that is, as not having a separate existence, a self-subsistent being of their own, but only as sublated, as moments; or rather, since substance in its own self lacks any determination whatever, they are for him not even moments, and the attributes like the modes are distinctions made by an external intellect. Similarly, the substantiality of individuals cannot persist in the face of that proposition."Hegel, Science of Logic  "Since absolute indifference may seem to be the fundamental determination of Spinoza's substance, we may add that this is indeed the case in so far as in both every determination of being, like every further concrete differentiation of thought and extension and so forth, is posited as vanished. If we stop short at the abstraction [of substance] then it is a matter of complete indifference what something looked like in reality before it was swallowed up in this abyss. But when substance is conceived as indifference, it is tied up with the need for determining it and for taking this determination into consideration; it is not to remain Spinoza's substance, the sole determination of which is the negative one that everything is absorbed in it. With Spinoza, the moment of difference — attributes, thought and extension, then the modes too, the affections, and every other determination — is introduced empirically; it is intellect, itself a mode, which is the source of the differentiation." Hegel, Science of Logic  3. It is capital which fails to realize its ideal determinations of essence and which falls back into the residue of the social substance, of the abstract labor which it masks. Capital as a mode of production is ruled by the real abstractions of exchange value which are not comprehended by social agents. Value is a social abstraction that is produced from the base of multiple dispersed evaluations, that the understanding of the economist produces only after the fact, but can be known as a real abstraction operated by society and which is determined as a social substance of abstract time. The determination of the common substance as abstract labor makes it possible to dissipate the mystification produced by the appearance of capital as the self moving essence of value. All of the people, who are modes of this substance, cannot immediately represent to themselves the internal determinations of this substance in which they appear other than as representation of theological-political complex, the same as the agents of capital who cannot represent to themselves the determinations of capital (commodity-value-money-forms of capital) without fetishizing them as autonomous movements of the value form. Theoretical knowledge, the Wissenschaft, does not dissolve this fetishism because the mechanisms of its social reproduction are founded on the constitution of these forms of representation and their real efficacy. Capital cannot arrive at self-identity in terms of an absolute reflection. The determination that Hegel imputes to Spinoza negatively of substance as exterior reflection can better convey the determinations of moments of its critique. This places within the development of initial economic forms this sort of equivalent of the attribute of extension that is human labor, this common social substance comprising the forms of modal representations which capture it, that is to say that the forms of consciousness and their functional relations in the material process of reproduction. It is therefore the relationship between the substances of abstract human labor and mystified or adequate forms of social representations of this substance that Marx finds in in the hidden Spinozian system and that he utilizes in order to escape the limits of Hegel's categories, which tend to sublimate substance into the concept and therefore annul the contradictions of capital in the passage from substance to the essence and the concept. From this point of view, Hegel and Spinoza would both be utilized without reservations by Marx as the complimentary and constitutive means of production of the critique of political economy. Spinoza would thus be primarily critical to the extent that the process of the development of the determination of capital cannot be ruled by the teleological order of being-essence-concept. The theory of the substance of abstract labor interrupts the movement of the idealization of capital from the mimesis of the Hegelian order that has been opposed. Spinoza is a moment of the emendation of the intellect internal to the Marxist critique, not an external instance that would be opposed in the confrontation with exteriority.  On an Incomplete Analysis  1. Schrader goes no further. The outline of his work remains open. In particular this analysis
Postulates as evidence a substantial theory of abstract labor, one that has come under criticism from multiple non-marxist thinkers (Croce, Pareto, Menger) and also, more recently, by Marxists (Althusser and Bidet). In this case the relation to Spinoza would lose its fecundity. But if one leaves to the side the labor theory of value and its supposed foundational role, on the internal level the analysis still remains allusive, because it would have been necessary to exceed the level of Volume One of Capital in order to demonstrate the decisive character of Spinoza's conceptuality in the Marxist conception.  Despite these uncertainties, the perspective opened by Schrader is stimulating in that can necessitate a more rigorous study, tempering the contradictory interpretations by the rigors of philology.  2. Schrader's final remarks seem to us be more provocative. Starting from the idea that
Spinoza and Marx begin from two different historical moments—that of manufacturing capital limited by the desire of hoarding and that of capitalism fully developed—the logical and ethico-political thesis of the submission of needs to absolute monetary enrichment, and that therefore the refusal of money as an end in itself, he begins to construct a shocking analogy between the third type of knowledge in Spinoza and the knowledge of the capitalist which exposes its money to circulation in order to multiply it. The determination of particular things sub specie aeternitas, as deepening the knowledge of their essence would symbolize with the effort of capitalists to insert money to measure things in their circulation sub specie capitalis. The reference to Marx attests to the irony of Marx: if the movement of true knowledge is infinite, this infinity cannot be confused with that of monetary accumulation which becomes a bad infinity because the means of accumulation are reversed and perverted to be posited as an end in itself.  3. It is more correct, as Schrader makes apparent, to find a space more effective for the
forma mentis common to Marx and Spinoza: the two both diagnosis the pathology of the understanding and that of a form of life proper to a given historical world. Both understand the irreversible character of modern passions and set to understand and eventually cure these pathologies.
Spinoza, son of a merchant enriched by international trade and a merchant himself in his youth, does not have contempt for money and the new wealth of nations promoted by capitalist economy. He does not dream of a return to oikos of finite needs in a household setting, he is not an aristoltean who condemns bad infinity of the circulation of merchandise which has as its object money and not the use value of merchandise. He registers the emergence of exchange value, he sees, as Aristotle did, that it is the subordination of true value.
Remember the famous text from Ethics IV Appendix, consecrated to the function of money.  XXVIII. Now to achieve these things the powers of each man would hardly be sufficient if men did not help one another. But money has provided a convenient instrument for acquiring all these aids. That is why its image usually occupies the mind of the multitude more than anything else. For they can imagine hardly any species of joy without the accompanying idea of money as its cause.  XXlX. But this is a vice only in those who seek money neither from need nor on account of necessities, but because they have learned the art of making money and pride themselves on it very much. As for the body, they feed it according to custom, but sparingly, because they believe they lose as much of their goods as they devote to the preservation
of their body. Those, however, who know the true use of money, and set
bounds to their wealth according to need, live contentedly with little. The realization of money as a concept, the accumulation of money for accumulation, is unrealized. Marx adds that this goal is inaccessible because the character of use value of commodities contradicts the universal sociality of value. The common social substance in so far as it is measured in abstract labor time is measured according to quantitatively determined portions. Money is supposed to represent value in its infinite becoming of an end in itself, but it can only effectively represent a determined part. This contradiction is resolved in the deplacement that money makes in becoming capital, exchange value multiplied in profit. Spinoza's therapeutic of desire also concern the intellect of calculation: the latter is not condemned, it is superior to the intellect of avarice which theorizes by avarita and does not develop the capacity to act and think. This understanding, however, is called upon to better understand the monetary economy by subordinating it to immanent true utility, that which is inscribed in the republic of free citizens. It is only in this sense that the accumulation of wealth under the monetary form can enter into the correct perspective of knowledge of the third kind. Marx in his own way wants to understand the action of human beings without deploring or flattering them. Capital cannot be understood going from substance to the essence of the concept, but it has its basis in substance, the social substance of abstract labor, and can be rethought and regrouped in the forms of economic understanding. Capital also has as its goal a particular therapeutic manner, the health and well-being of a social body that cannot be subsumed under capital but must encompass the increase of the capacities of acting and thinking that capital subordinates to itself.  4. This anti-teleological function of the concept of substance/abstract labor is not
maintained by Marx for long in his dialectic. Certainly the function of the subject cannot be attributed to capital, but it is displaced and given a different support, not that of abstract labor with its internal multiplicity and impersonality, but its bearer, that of the working class, the proletariat, the people of the people. The substance of abstract labor becomes subject in the determination that Marx always uses with the English term general intellect. One could thus see a final return of Hegel which interrupts Marx's return to Spinoza. The communism developed by the general intellect is the practical substitute of the Hegelian concept and imposes an anthropological version and anthropocentric teleology that Spinoza would not accept. What does the general intellect represent? It represents the capacity of the proletariat to organize the ensemble of forces defining the collective worker and the cooperation associated with it, under the direction of formation of the factory in the constitution of the unqualified worker, all representing the advance front of the progressive socialization of the social productive forces. Communism is not something that is imposed as a simple moral ideal, it is a product of the real historical process.  However, Marx does not escape here the teleologism that he shares with majority of
German idealism. The socialization of productive forces—that for Marx leads the process of the self-production of humanity realizing its immanent end and to which he attributes the function of the concept—is not realized at the level of society. It cannot in any way constitute itself as a causa sui. The human world remains a world of world of modal relations and interactions: if the effects of liberation can realize themselves at the level of the individual (by the knowledge of singular things) or at the level of collectivity ( by the democratic constitution of the multitude), these effects would not be made from a mode as a complete cause of itself under all points of view. The capacity of a mode to act and think, human individual or society, can be more or less adequate, but this adequation does not annul the difference that separates the mode which is produced by and in another which it requires to subsist and which is produced in and by itself and becomes a cause of itself. The identity of natura naturata and natura naturans cannot grant a mode the capacity to be cause of itself under all points of view: it permits it to do so under certain points of view and certain conditions which are sufficient for an ethical realization. Communism to the extent that Marx thinks in terms of the becoming concept of the collective worker exceeds the conditions and possibilities of action predicated on modes.  To this structural impossibility we can add the consideration of an analytical one: modern society is not immense and singular enterprise under the order of the collective worker, it is, to say the least, a network of antagonistic enterprises in which on the contrary the process of work is fragmented to the point where it loses all material and ideal unity, a fragmentation that has been imposed by the imperative of capitalist society. Exploitation is not only maintained but it is generalized, it is only in compensation that the recomposition of labor process itself as something collective, cooperative, and associated that Marx believes leads the dialectic of the process of capitalist production. Spinozist realism is here irreducible. It does not limited us in taking the measure of the problem posed generally by Marx, it excludes, however, the solution envisioned from speculative teleology and it compels us to attempt to comprehend the modal form in which exploitation is reproduced. How can we form a new theory of the capacity for insurrection of the multitude subordinated to capital while they also resist it. What effects of liberation can still be manifested by producing new subjectivities which are embedded in real productive activities, not prisoners of unproductive ghettos ravaged by self-destructive violence, nor recluse themselves in the powerless rumination of a moral salvation? How can we escape forms of historical impotence? How can we avoid being reduced to the status of spectators of this impotence? Such are the questions posed by Marx and which are posed again today along with Spinoza and his critique of the teleological illusions of the general intellect, questions which have not arrived at the end of their road. But it is historically vain to ask Marx these questions: they are ours and it is up to us to answer them.

Tomorrow night, we settle in for a much anticipated show-down between President Joe Biden and former President Trump. Foreign policy rarely plays a huge role in presidential debates, but with two live conflicts (Ukraine and Middle East) and escalating tensions with China, the Quincy Institute has anticipated questions that could be asked on the key issues of the day and offered these suggestions on how the candidates should respond tonight. How long should the U.S. continue to send aid to Ukraine?Battlefield conditions have turned against Ukraine recently, as Russia has made its first territorial gains since early in the war. Despite its advantages in manpower and military, Russia has shown little capacity for conquering, let alone governing, the vast majority of Ukrainian territory. The Biden administration has pushed for sending aid to Ukraine, and continues to say that it will do "'nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine." At the same time, Biden has maintained that the U.S. will not get directly involved in a war with Russia.However, as conditions have gotten increasingly more dire on the Ukrainian frontlines, leadership in Kyiv has urged Washington and its other Western allies to grow their involvement in the conflict. If Ukraine's partners go down that path, it could invite a more aggressive response from Russia and perhaps nuclear escalation.To avoid such an outcome, Washington should push Kyiv to pursue a negotiated settlement. Continuing U.S. aid is critical to provide Ukraine with leverage at the negotiating table. "U.S. aid to Ukraine should continue as part of a broader diplomatic strategy to orchestrate a negotiated settlement of the war," says George Beebe, director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute. "Absent a negotiating strategy, continued aid will only prolong Ukraine's suffering, deepen its destruction, and increase the chances the United States and Russia stumble into a direct military confrontation."Already the war has had a destructive impact on Ukraine. Its economy has cratered, and Ukraine is now thoroughly dependent on Western assistance to sustain it. The country has suffered a massive population decline. And the longer the war continues, the more strained Ukrainian democracy and civil rights will likely become.The Middle East: Is a defense pact with Saudi Arabia in the U.S. interest? In the midst of Israel's war on Gaza, which has now killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, including at least 15,000 children, the Biden administration has gone full steam ahead in its pursuit of a defense pact with Saudi Arabia that it views as the pathway to peace between Israel and Palestine and the broader Middle East. The looming agreement would offer Riyadh a security guarantee in exchange for the normalization of relations with Israel.Such an agreement could exacerbate regional tensions and introduce more arms, potentially including nuclear weapons, into the Middle East. Washington would be further implicated in a Saudi Arabian foreign policy that has proven reckless without gaining much in return."It is not in U.S. interests to extend a security guarantee to Saudi Arabia, which could potentially require the US to send American troops to fight and die to defend the House of Saud," Annelle Sheline, Middle East research fellow at the Quincy Institute, told RS. "The U.S. is no longer dependent on Saudi oil and therefore should reduce its military commitments to the Kingdom, not super-size them."In addition to risking American lives, a defense commitment for Riyadh would further tie Washington to a regime that has a concerning human rights record, carried out a war on Yemen that killed nearly 400,000 Yemenis, and who recent court documents show were complicit in the 9/11 attacks.Biden ran pledging to turn Saudi Arabia into a "pariah," but quickly reversed course and has made the potential defense pact a top foreign policy priority. Trump, for his part, also cultivated close ties with Riyadh, launching the first normalization agreements under the Abraham Accords, between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain during his presidency. How do we compete with China and​ avoid conflict?Both the Biden and Trump administrations pinpointed China as their primary national security threat and foreign policy priority. Though tensions have not yet bubbled over into outright conflict, the Biden administration has largely followed his predecessor's lead with aggressive rhetoric and economic policies."U.S.–China relations have been quiet recently, but dangerous pressures are building under the surface. If we stay the present course, we're likely to see major conflict in the next presidential term, no matter who wins in November," Jake Werner, acting director of the East Asia Program at the Quincy Institute, told RS. "To change U.S.–China competition from toxic to healthy, we need fewer provocations on both sides, particularly on the most sensitive issue, Taiwan. Even as we implement prudent safeguards, America should stop trying to exclude China from important markets, technologies, and the life of our country."An escalation of conflict with China could have devastating consequences for the United States. Estimates suggest that a war over Taiwan cost the worldeconomy $10 trillion — around 10% of global GDP, and the U.S. and its regional allies would likely lose thousands of service members, dozens of ships, and hundreds of aircraft. One war game concluded that in the first three weeks of war, the United States would suffer roughly half as many casualties as it did in 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan."We need to recognize that the US and China share interests on the most important issues to regular Americans, including climate change, public health, peaceful world politics, and expanding opportunity in the global economy," says Werner. "If each side stops regarding the other as an inevitable enemy, we could begin serious talks on the reforms that would make space for both countries to thrive."Are we spending enough on our military?The U.S. Congress is currently debating a military budget of nearly $900 billion, and some experts say that the real number has already surpassed $1 trillion.
Some prominent Senators want the budget to grow even more, citing the threats posed by China and Russia as the reason. But Washington spends more than the next ten countries combined. And that total is far higher than is required to keep Americans safe. "We can mount a robust defense of America and its allies for far less than we are spending now if we adopt a less interventionist posture and take a more realistic view of the challenge posed by China," Bill Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute, tells RS.
Neither Trump nor Biden has shown much appetite for cutting the Pentagon budget, but pursuing a strategy could allow the next president to put diplomatic, economic, and cultural engagement, as opposed to militarism, at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy.
Pursuing such a strategy might push allies to stop free-riding on U.S. military largesse and begin to invest in their own defense and would free up funds that could be invested back into the urgent challenges facing Americans at home.

The development of Ukrainian defense industry technologies in response to Russian missile and drone attacks has led to the revival of Ukraine's defense technological and industrial base (DTIB) after decades of decline. It seems clear that Ukraine will have to rely on technology to withstand an aggressor with four times more draftable conscripts to call on. The United States would benefit economically and in the acquisition of advanced military technology by cooperating with Ukraine in joint defense industry ventures.The Boom in Armaments TechnologyIn 2023, the Ukrainian defense industry produced weapons and equipment worth $3 billion, adding 1.5 percent to the country's GDP growth. Over the past year, the largest state-owned industry holding, Ukrainian Defense Industry JSC, boosted its production by 92 percent, but it now lags behind local, privately owned defense enterprises, especially with respect to R&D. For example, nine out of ten long-range drone manufacturers are private players.Ukraine, with over 100 different drone models developed and customized locally for the military's needs by more than 200 Ukrainian manufacturers, greatly outperforms Russia in this arena. Ukraine's Sea Baby maritime drone, largely produced through private R&D, has already destroyed one-third of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, forcing the remaining vessels out of Russia's naval base in Sevastopol. The need to increase weapons production has become increasingly urgent, however, as Putin boosts Russia's military production with additional budget allocations and mobilizes hundreds of thousands of new soldiers. These moves threaten not only Ukraine but also the EU and NATO—hence the United States.President Zelensky has proposed a target of one million drones produced annually by Ukraine, a figure barely feasible without considerably greater foreign capital investment in drone production. Sustaining the great number of arms variants and integrating these military technologies has become a challenge for the Ukrainian army. Proven success in such integration so far has made Ukraine the world center for the testing and practical application of modern weapons. Nonstop front-line data collection has aided Ukraine in becoming a global leader in technology development. The practical application of big data takes place in real time that otherwise would take years and tens of billions of dollars just to replicate the data sources needed for such R&D.Ukraine's weapon supply needs have also undergone changes. Whereas in early 2022, old Soviet-standard ammo, tanks, and artillery were employed to support Ukraine's defense, with a subsequent shift toward post-World War II stocks, today newly manufactured, modern NATO-standard weapons are arriving at the front.Can Localized Coproduction Be Achieved Quickly?Last year, cooperation in the defense sphere between Ukraine and the United States reached a new level. The White House announced it wanted Ukraine to be a partner in joint production and would provide the necessary technology transfers for military R&D and production.Sealing the deal, in December 2023 the United States and Ukraine signed a declaration on joint weapons manufacturing, including the production of hybrid air defense systems within the FrankenSAM program, which combines advanced Western technology and Soviet-era weapons stockpiles, with possible technology transfer for Ukraine. (An early test of the combined weapon system in January 2024 was successful.) A special tri-departmental interagency group, the Ukraine Deal Team, has begun operating. Its task is to work on potential deals and craft the U.S. response in respect to export requirements.Ukraine has a distinct presence in military technology and can quickly adapt to joint weapons production with American DTIB players, starting with licensed manufacturing and moving toward common R&D. Still, despite the deal looking favorable, some conflict risk mitigation protection is needed to stimulate such U.S. investment. Three ways of providing such protection are commonly discussed.1. Insurance of investments for defense industry enterprisesOne way to derisk cooperative DTIB investments is to provide investment insurance, but no existing programs covering DTIB military risk are available now. Conflict risk coverage needs to be created for U.S. DTIB investments. Such coverage could be formulated along the lines of the successful non-DTIB investment insurance developed several years ago by the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, and the insurance programs developed by the World Bank's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency. Both programs could be a model for the DTIB sector.2. New Lend-Lease DTIB equipment-targeted programThe U.S. Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act, passed on April 28, 2022, could have helped in this regard. Despite its advantages, however, it was not used by the U.S. administration in fiscal 2023 and was allowed to expire on September 30, 2023. The White House prefers other support programs for Ukraine, such as the Presidential Drawdown Authority (allowing the president to deliver services and equipment quickly from U.S. stocks), the IMF's Extended Fund Facility (which provides funds to support Ukraine economically), and the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, operating under the U.S. Department of Defense (which provides funds for training and equipment to build Ukraine's defense capacity).An alternative approach would be to revisit lend-lease arrangements to support commercial leasing of the equipment needed for weapons and ammunition production. This could be crucial to meeting the massive CAPEX needs (capital expenditures, used to acquire and maintain hard physical assets) for the joint ventures suggested above to ramp up production quickly in high volumes. The lend-lease mechanism proved successful during World War II. The difference now is that leasing can be provided on a paid basis for the private sector, avoiding the additional sovereign-country-risk liability burden for Ukraine.3. Diversified demand for long-term agreementsThe Ukrainian army's needs for modern weaponry and EU and NATO members' needs to replenish, modernize, and expand their own stockpiles will support such cross-border joint ventures with Ukrainian firms.Long-term off-take contracts both from Ukraine and allied states are also needed but will become practical only if military technology conflict insurance can be offered for investments. The intense local combat and probable future instability both in the region and globally means that demand for DTIB products will likely remain high for decades.Potential OutcomesDTIB is a long-term priority of the Ukrainian government. In the future, it should lead to the development of a more technologically competent workforce and experienced engineers. The country's high-tech military sector will develop quickly. It would also ensure that manufacturing in Ukraine through joint ventures would be cheaper, rewarding the United States well for its involvement. And the joint venture production would be a form of economic assistance that would reduce the need for direct U.S. support.All the ingredients are in place for U.S.-Ukraine coproduction now. Needed are some facilitators, such as DTIB conflict insurance, to get it rolling. Special legal protections and tax regimes for joint military technology projects would also encourage quick action. It's time to move forward on these projects.The opinions expressed in this article are those solely of the author and do not reflect the views of the Kennan Institute.

The development of Ukrainian defense industry technologies in response to Russian missile and drone attacks has led to the revival of Ukraine's defense technological and industrial base (DTIB) after decades of decline. It seems clear that Ukraine will have to rely on technology to withstand an aggressor with four times more draftable conscripts to call on. The United States would benefit economically and in the acquisition of advanced military technology by cooperating with Ukraine in joint defense industry ventures.The Boom in Armaments TechnologyIn 2023, the Ukrainian defense industry produced weapons and equipment worth $3 billion, adding 1.5 percent to the country's GDP growth. Over the past year, the largest state-owned industry holding, Ukrainian Defense Industry JSC, boosted its production by 92 percent, but it now lags behind local, privately owned defense enterprises, especially with respect to R&D. For example, nine out of ten long-range drone manufacturers are private players.Ukraine, with over 100 different drone models developed and customized locally for the military's needs by more than 200 Ukrainian manufacturers, greatly outperforms Russia in this arena. Ukraine's Sea Baby maritime drone, largely produced through private R&D, has already destroyed one-third of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, forcing the remaining vessels out of Russia's naval base in Sevastopol. The need to increase weapons production has become increasingly urgent, however, as Putin boosts Russia's military production with additional budget allocations and mobilizes hundreds of thousands of new soldiers. These moves threaten not only Ukraine but also the EU and NATO—hence the United States.President Zelensky has proposed a target of one million drones produced annually by Ukraine, a figure barely feasible without considerably greater foreign capital investment in drone production. Sustaining the great number of arms variants and integrating these military technologies has become a challenge for the Ukrainian army. Proven success in such integration so far has made Ukraine the world center for the testing and practical application of modern weapons. Nonstop front-line data collection has aided Ukraine in becoming a global leader in technology development. The practical application of big data takes place in real time that otherwise would take years and tens of billions of dollars just to replicate the data sources needed for such R&D.Ukraine's weapon supply needs have also undergone changes. Whereas in early 2022, old Soviet-standard ammo, tanks, and artillery were employed to support Ukraine's defense, with a subsequent shift toward post-World War II stocks, today newly manufactured, modern NATO-standard weapons are arriving at the front.Can Localized Coproduction Be Achieved Quickly?Last year, cooperation in the defense sphere between Ukraine and the United States reached a new level. The White House announced it wanted Ukraine to be a partner in joint production and would provide the necessary technology transfers for military R&D and production.Sealing the deal, in December 2023 the United States and Ukraine signed a declaration on joint weapons manufacturing, including the production of hybrid air defense systems within the FrankenSAM program, which combines advanced Western technology and Soviet-era weapons stockpiles, with possible technology transfer for Ukraine. (An early test of the combined weapon system in January 2024 was successful.) A special tri-departmental interagency group, the Ukraine Deal Team, has begun operating. Its task is to work on potential deals and craft the U.S. response in respect to export requirements.Ukraine has a distinct presence in military technology and can quickly adapt to joint weapons production with American DTIB players, starting with licensed manufacturing and moving toward common R&D. Still, despite the deal looking favorable, some conflict risk mitigation protection is needed to stimulate such U.S. investment. Three ways of providing such protection are commonly discussed.1. Insurance of investments for defense industry enterprisesOne way to derisk cooperative DTIB investments is to provide investment insurance, but no existing programs covering DTIB military risk are available now. Conflict risk coverage needs to be created for U.S. DTIB investments. Such coverage could be formulated along the lines of the successful non-DTIB investment insurance developed several years ago by the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, and the insurance programs developed by the World Bank's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency. Both programs could be a model for the DTIB sector.2. New Lend-Lease DTIB equipment-targeted programThe U.S. Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act, passed on April 28, 2022, could have helped in this regard. Despite its advantages, however, it was not used by the U.S. administration in fiscal 2023 and was allowed to expire on September 30, 2023. The White House prefers other support programs for Ukraine, such as the Presidential Drawdown Authority (allowing the president to deliver services and equipment quickly from U.S. stocks), the IMF's Extended Fund Facility (which provides funds to support Ukraine economically), and the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, operating under the U.S. Department of Defense (which provides funds for training and equipment to build Ukraine's defense capacity).An alternative approach would be to revisit lend-lease arrangements to support commercial leasing of the equipment needed for weapons and ammunition production. This could be crucial to meeting the massive CAPEX needs (capital expenditures, used to acquire and maintain hard physical assets) for the joint ventures suggested above to ramp up production quickly in high volumes. The lend-lease mechanism proved successful during World War II. The difference now is that leasing can be provided on a paid basis for the private sector, avoiding the additional sovereign-country-risk liability burden for Ukraine.3. Diversified demand for long-term agreementsThe Ukrainian army's needs for modern weaponry and EU and NATO members' needs to replenish, modernize, and expand their own stockpiles will support such cross-border joint ventures with Ukrainian firms.Long-term off-take contracts both from Ukraine and allied states are also needed but will become practical only if military technology conflict insurance can be offered for investments. The intense local combat and probable future instability both in the region and globally means that demand for DTIB products will likely remain high for decades.Potential OutcomesDTIB is a long-term priority of the Ukrainian government. In the future, it should lead to the development of a more technologically competent workforce and experienced engineers. The country's high-tech military sector will develop quickly. It would also ensure that manufacturing in Ukraine through joint ventures would be cheaper, rewarding the United States well for its involvement. And the joint venture production would be a form of economic assistance that would reduce the need for direct U.S. support.All the ingredients are in place for U.S.-Ukraine coproduction now. Needed are some facilitators, such as DTIB conflict insurance, to get it rolling. Special legal protections and tax regimes for joint military technology projects would also encourage quick action. It's time to move forward on these projects.The opinions expressed in this article are those solely of the author and do not reflect the views of the Kennan Institute.

In a recent interview, Pope Francis took stock of the war in Ukraine. "The strongest one is the one who looks at the situation, thinks about the people and has the courage of the white flag, and negotiates," the pope told Swiss media. The comment led to derision from Ukraine and its Western supporters, who saw in the pontiff's message a call to capitulate. (We'll leave aside the fact that, behind closed doors, some European diplomats are reportedly warming to the idea of a negotiated end to the war.)Pope Francis offered an easy target for criticism by referring to a white flag, the traditional symbol of surrender. But one of his key messages actually was, "Don't be ashamed to negotiate before things get worse." Pope Francis has often referred to the Ukrainian people as martyrs in this war; suggestions that his words are a gift to Putin are misguided and confuse his anti-war instincts for support of Russia's war effort.Pope Francis noted that "the word negotiate is a courageous word." Pierre Hazan, a senior adviser with the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and author of a new book on conflict mediation, would probably agree. Hazan cut his teeth as a journalist covering the Bosnia War and other conflicts before putting down the pen to take an active role in armed conflict negotiations. One of these was the peace process in the Basque Country that led the terrorist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) to lay down its arms. In "Negotiating with the Devil: Inside the World of Armed Conflict Mediation," the Swiss mediator mounts a strong defense of the importance of negotiation in the middle of a conflict.Before extolling the virtues of talks, Hazan acknowledges the potential pitfalls. Among other things, negotiations risk being manipulated by one of the parties. The author provides the example of the Munich Conference in 1938, which became the antechamber of Adolf Hitler's march on the European continent. There is also the possibility that talks become a smokescreen for violence. Hazan mentions here the Norwegian-led mediation between the Sri Lanka government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a group of ruthless insurgents fighting for a Tamil state. When the Sri Lankan government wiped out the LTTE in a final offensive in 2009, it also killed around 40,000 civilians in the process. On rare occasions, the problem is not that negotiations end up facilitating carnage but that there is simply no partner willing to talk. That is the case of ISIS or the extinct Shining Path in Peru, explains the Swiss mediator.These difficulties notwithstanding, for Hazan, the key question remains whether "negotiating with war criminals—including the worst of them—might save lives." To this, he replies that "with very few exceptions, the answer is yes, of course." Those who mediate in armed conflicts are forced to consider possibilities that are far removed from ideals of justice in the search for the least bad option, argues Hazan. This became more complicated after the 9/11 attacks, when President Bush declared a "War on Terror," and the room for negotiations with warring states, rebel groups, or terrorist organizations narrowed down dramatically. In this new context, remarks Hazan, "mediation, previously lauded, was pushed aside in favour of military solutions."If total victory over terrorists and rogue states was, as Bush suggested, both just and within reach, then there was little need for negotiation in this new world. If the goal was to export democracy and eliminate terrorism once and for all, Bush failed spectacularly on both accounts. By then, however, the world had already been defined in good-versus-evil terms. Thus, to conduct badly needed talks with the evil side of this simplistic equation (be it Iran, North Korea, or the Taliban) would have been seen as treason to our highest ideals. The U.S., with European countries often following suit, promoted a new paradigm according to which mediation was "perceived as an admission of weakness," writes Hazan.These dynamics can be observed in the case of former United Nations diplomat Álvaro de Soto, who resigned his position as envoy for the Middle East Peace Process in May 2007. After Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections, the international community halted direct funding to the Palestinian Authority. The rationale was that this would apply pressure on Hamas to recognize the state of Israel and renounce violence. The consequence was not a moderation in Hamas' positions but a steep increase in poverty among Palestinians and a deterioration of public services.De Soto opposed the aid blockade on Palestinians but had little room to maneuver, as the Peruvian diplomat himself explained in a secret report written before handing in his resignation. In the (subsequently leaked) report, de Soto argued U.S. pressure had "pummelled into submission" the U.N.'s role as a neutral mediator in the Middle East. As Hazan explains, one of the biggest obstacles for de Soto was that his superiors forbade him to continue talks with Hamas or the Syrian government.Hazan added a preface to the original French edition of his book to cover the events that followed Hamas' attack against Israel on October 7, when the militant group killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages. Since then, Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip has resulted in the death of at least 31,000 people. Hazan reflects on the Qatar-mediated ceasefire in Gaza that lasted for a week at the end of November 2023. The ceasefire, the author argues, was a historical development for at least two reasons. First, it was probably an unprecedented agreement, as hostages were directly exchanged for ceasefire days. And second, Qatar's role exemplified "the end of Western hegemony over the international system."Whether Western hegemony will be followed by something better is up for debate. However, when Hazan points to Turkey's role in the mediation of the grain deal between Russia and Ukraine, or to China's diplomatic efforts leading to the resumption of ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia, it is easy to recognize a pattern towards a broader plurality in the mediation scene.Hazan offered an interview last month discussing the latest developments in the Ukraine war, which are not included in the book. Hazan explained that he sees two main scenarios for a mediated solution in Ukraine. In the first one, a precarious calm would prevail and there would be a limited ceasefire with Russia and Ukraine technically at war for the foreseeable future. In the second one, what he calls the "Korean model," there would be a demilitarized zone between the two sides with Ukraine obtaining security guarantees and NATO/European Union membership. A more robust mediation process and peace agreement will only happen "if the military or the political situation changes radically either way," he argued.Based on his long-time experience, Hazan notes that "peace is a messy, chaotic business, as is the road that leads to it." There is no sense in negotiating only for negotiations' sake, and mediation is fraught with dangers.Yet experts should not be swayed by the supposed moral certitude of refusing to come to the table. Outright negation of the possibility of talks carries the risk of missing opportunities to settle for the lesser evil even as the greater good fades into the distance.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine opened with a march toward Kyiv. The northern thrust of this push came from Belarusian territory. To this day, Belarus remains a hub for Russian attacks on its southern neighbor. Worryingly, the country now hosts Russian tactical nuclear weapons, a situation unthinkable a few years earlier. Why did Belarus, previously keeping its distance from Russian power, throw in its lot with Moscow? Could the United States have prevented such an outcome?Since its independence, Belarus has had close relations with Russia but always stayed out of the Kremlin's overwhelming shadow. Following the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, Minsk refused to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, despite Russia's insistence. A dispute over dairy product exports led to the 2009 "Milk War." Relations became so poor that Russian TV channels aired programs presenting President Alexander Lukashenko as a despicable tyrant, something unimaginable today.Before 2014, Americans and Europeans had little sympathy for "Europe's last dictatorship." But the Crimean annexation, the Donbas war, and the Russian threat's resurrection changed the West's outlook. Some envisioned pulling Belarus away from Russia's orbit and associating it with Europe instead. Western capitals put democracy promotion on hold for dialogue's sake. Belarus, too, felt an existential threat and pursued better relations with the West. It became defiant toward Moscow and tried to limit Russian influence over the national military.Belarus released all its political prisoners in 2015 to please the United States. In turn, Washington ended some sanctions on the regime. While the Russians pushed hard to establish an air base, the Belarusians resisted. They also distanced themselves from Russia's most confrontational policies. For instance, Lukashenko invited NATO observers to the massive 2017 Russian-led Zapad military maneuvers, fearing the exercises would scare away its Western neighbors.Bilateral U.S.-Belarus relations kept improving. In October 2018, Assistant Secretary of State Wess Mitchell was the first senior American diplomat to travel to Belarus and meet Lukashenko in over a decade. Diplomatic contacts intensified, and the two countries signed a bilateral "Open Skies" agreement, a sign of increasing trust. Then-national security adviser John Bolton visited Minsk in August 2019. Lukashenko responded enthusiastically to American openings, encouraging him to resist Russian pressure to accelerate political and economic integration in the supranational "Union State." That year also saw Belarus take significant steps to hedge against the Russian risk. Minsk introduced a policy of "Belarusianization" to mobilize the populace's nationalism and insulate it from Russian societal influence while introducing a visa-free regime for EU and American citizens' short-term travels. The country intensified its efforts to modernize the military and sent security cooperation feelers toward Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine, all countries at odds with Russia. Minsk expressed hope for building up ties with NATO.In February 2020, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Belarus. Never had U.S.-Belarus relations been so cordial, and never had Russia-Belarus relations been so poor. When Belarus faced an oil price dispute with Russia, Pompeo quickly agreed to sell it oil, justifying that this deal "strengthens Belarusian sovereignty and independence," a wise policy if one fears Russian influence. But the U.S.-Belarusian honeymoon was not to last, and the Russians soon gained more than they ever bargained for.In 2020, Lukashenko's decision to run for the upcoming presidential election profoundly disgruntled the liberal opposition, as the election would likely be rigged in his favor. Indeed, he won the August election in a landslide. This engendered a mass protest movement against the regime. Following the EU, the United States refused to recognize Lukashenko's victory, sanctioned his regime, and openly sided with the opposition. U.S.-Belarus ties became nonexistent. After relations with the West collapsed, Belarus threw in its lot with Moscow. Sensing the opportunity, Putin was quick to congratulate Lukashenko for his victory. He assured Minsk he would deploy Russian security forces if the protest movement got out of control. Now in the Kremlin's debt, Lukashenko and Putin had a flurry of conversations and meetings, and Lukashenko accelerated the Union State integration process in exchange for Russian money. In retaliation to the West's hostility, Minsk engineered a migrant crisis by pushing large numbers of refugees toward the Polish border. Throughout 2021 and early 2022, military cooperation reached a height unseen before, which we know in hindsight was preparation for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The two countries' air defense units started joint combat duties, and Belarus finally agreed to host the Russian air force. In November 2021, Lukashenko promised to intervene in a future war in Ukraine and acknowledged Russian sovereignty over Crimea. Belarus also decided to amend its constitution to introduce Russian nuclear weapons. Previously, Russian forces could enter Belarus only during prearranged exercises. But pretexting military maneuvers, Russian troops arrived en masse. Ultimately, Belarus received the West's opprobrium for accepting that Russian forces use its territory to attack Ukraine on February 24, 2022.This sequence shows that adroit statecraft can accomplish much at little cost and that ideology can create widespread, unforeseen damage to U.S. interests. Minsk resisted aligning with Moscow until 2020 despite intense Russian pressure. Indeed, the U.S. and European engagement policy after the 2014 Ukrainian crisis offered Belarus leverage over the Kremlin. However, following the 2020 elections, Washington abandoned engagement and opted for maximum pressure, perceived as regime change. Out of options, Lukashenko requested Russian help. Now forced to do Putin's bidding, he accepted the Russian military on his soil, enabled the thrust toward Kyiv in early 2022, and now even hosts Russian nuclear weapons. Washington had no direct interest in openly siding with the opposition against Lukashenko. Had the protesters seized power, it could have endorsed them. Had Lukashenko triumphed, it could have maintained the course of strengthening Belarus's hand against Russia. But America's urge to support the losing side for ideological motives sank U.S.-Belarus relations to the bottom and made it impossible for Minsk to play the West against Russia. Lukashenko was then forced to follow the orders of Putin, his last backer, ultimately leading to Belarusian support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.Now under Russian military control, independent Belarus's race is run. The current regime might remain in office as a Russian satrap. But the Kremlin will probably conclude that annexing the country represents the safest option to guarantee long-term domination and grow Russia's power base. Counterfactuals are always risky, but Moscow would have struggled to subjugate Lukashenko had the United States not jettisoned engagement for maximum pressure in 2020.Although Belarus's fate is sealed, Washington must not repeat the same mistake elsewhere. Many potential partners to counterbalance Russian and Chinese power are unsavory authoritarian states. Preaching non-proliferation and liberalization, legacy neoconservative policies pushed North Korea toward Beijing despite Pyongyang expressing fear of China's rise. While Iran traditionally eschewed great power alignment, American intransigence and Trump's abandonment of the 2015 nuclear deal encouraged Tehran to embrace China and Russia, even supporting Putin's war effort. Washington can continue growing Beijing and Moscow's spheres of influence by letting ideology drive American foreign policy. In that case, China and Russia will gain additional means to threaten the United States and its allies. Otherwise, it could use efficient statecraft, such as its pre-2020 Belarus policy, to secure new partners and limit its rivals' opportunities. Of prudence or ideology, which will prevail?

Politics in the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu, located east of Australia, can be turbulent, with constant chessboard moves among parliamentary members with fluid party ties and frequent no confidence motions. But the strategic importance of the country to the U.S.-Australia alliance and China was a factor in the recent abrupt expulsion of the 10-month-old government led by then-Prime Minister Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau.In late August, Kalsakau lost a vote of no confidence against him by opposition leader Bob Loughman, who has for years backed China's increasing influence in the Pacific nation. After disputes about the vote result, Loughman was appointed deputy prime minister in the new government under Prime Minister Sato Kilman, who took the helm on September 4. The sudden change in administration came a year after Loughman, a former prime minister, ceded his leadership after parliament was dissolved and he avoided a vote of no confidence against himself. The snap election which followed in October last year saw Kalsakau take the top job.While the government is contending with domestic issues, such as a struggling economy, unemployment and contentious debates about the minimum wage, the main trigger for the latest political crisis was a security agreement with Australia signed by Kalsakau in December last year and due for parliamentary ratification. Vanuatu is one of many Pacific Island states that do not have their own armed forces and depend on military assistance from bilateral partners when needed.For Loughman, the unratified bilateral pact, which would increase military and law enforcement, but also disaster and humanitarian relief and cybersecurity co-operation with Australia, could have risked Vanuatu's relations with China. New Prime Minister Kilman claimed there had been a lack of consultation about the pact with ministers. Yet it was not an unknown or hasty development. Discussions about the agreement had been occurring between Australia and successive governments in Vanuatu for five years. "Australia respects Vanuatu's sovereign decision-making processes, including in relation to the bilateral security agreement that began in 2018 and was signed in 2022," Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs responded. The signing of the pact followed deep concerns by the U.S. and its allies about China's security agreement with the Solomon Islands that was announced last April.Soon after taking office, Kilman vehemently denied any geopolitical reasons for the crisis, claiming that the country had always and will continue to be "neutral" in big power contests. "We are not pro-West and we are not pro-Chinese," he said. "We adopt a non-aligned policy." Indeed, Vanuatu has a spectrum of development and aid relations with Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan, and its mobile paramilitary police force has also received support from Australia, New Zealand and China.Yet, in being non-aligned, Vanuatu was swift in 2016 to declare its support for China's territorial claim to islands in the South China Sea that are at the center of a heated sovereignty dispute and military provocation between the East Asian powerhouse and several of its Southeast Asian neighbors. And, for U.S. commentators, a high-risk site for potential conflict.Despite the Pacific nation remaining outside of any direct military involvement in U.S.-China geopolitics, it has, under some political leaders, become increasingly receptive to China's political influence. Last year, Loughman signed an array of agreements with China on technology, energy, infrastructure, health and economic development and, the year before, a multi-million dollar bilateral grant agreement on economic and technical cooperation. In 2018, Chinese funding and construction of a massive port development in the provincial, but geographically strategic, coastal town of Luganville, attracted international attention. Security experts speculated that, due to its exceptional size, it could potentially be used as a warship base.In contrast, Kalsakau has been publicly critical of China's penetration of Vanuatu's political life for several years. In 2018, he told the Australian media there wasn't enough internal scrutiny of the massive inflow of Chinese loans, businesses and influence and "he feared China was pursuing its strategic interests by showering Vanuatu with largesse and deepening its influence in the country." Last year, Vanuatu's public debt totalled 40 percent of GDP. China, its largest foreign creditor, is owed more than one third of its total external debt, which totals about $314 million and constitutes 32 percent of GDP.French President Emmanuel Macron expressed additional concerns during a visit to Vanuatu in July. "There is in the Indo-Pacific, and particularly in Oceania, new imperialism appearing and a power logic that is threatening the sovereignty of several states; the smallest, often the most fragile,"Macron said.Vanuatu, like many Pacific Island states, is a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy. But its statecraft is heavily influenced by norms of Melanesian customary governance that have prevailed for centuries. The power of traditional clan leaders in island societies is determined by their ability to acquire and distribute wealth and resources to their constituencies, rather than adherence to an ideology or party-driven policies. While political cultures in the Pacific are evolving, this legacy makes politicians particularly vulnerable to China's strategies of economic largesse and coercion which entails reciprocity.During his recent tenure as prime minister, Kalsakau attempted to broaden his country's international relations, bringing in other development partners, such as Saudi Arabia, and working for wide-ranging global support of its legal probe of climate justice at the UN General Assembly. He also took steps to reform Vanuatu's controversial citizenship-selling program in response to security concerns by the EU which has had a visa waiver arrangement with the nation.There is no doubt that Pacific Island leaders are opposed to being parties in the regional U.S.-China rivalry and are reasserting their rights of sovereignty above all else. At a meeting in August of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, an inter-governmental organization of southwest Pacific Island states, leaders emphasized their refusal to take sides in geopolitical battles.But regional analysts also point to Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Samoa being located on a key geographical axis, which is crucial to maritime access into and across the Pacific Ocean by the U.S., Australia and China.Yet, despite the political upheaval, the new prime minister has not dismissed closer security ties with Australia; only that the pending agreement won't be ratified in its current form. "My view would be to revisit the agreement with both sides, the Australians and the Vanuatu government, and see if there's any sticking points and then address that," Kilman was quoted on September 4.Some Australian strategists support Vanuatu's greater scrutiny of the pact, claiming that it is a sign of democratic processes at work. But, in terms of a timeline, it is unlikely to be an immediate priority for the new leadership.

Modern Chinese political discourse, regarding foreign policy, has aroused considerable interest in the academic world, both by Western intellectuals and by Chinese scholars. In both cases, this interest is found in the possibility of generating a kind of translation of the particular Chinese discursive logics towards significant standards for the West. Furthermore, as an ultimate goal, it is hoped that this interpretive task may favor better political understandings between China and the West. In this sense, the current trade war between China and the United States represents a relevant object of study, to analyze from a Chinese political and discursive perspective. In this research paper we ask: what trends can be identified in an evolutionary analysis of the Chinese agenda in the trade war with the United States? The research analyzes two official documents on the subject (White papers) from the highest echelons of the government of the People's Republic of China: The Facts and China's Position on China-US Trade Friction (September 2018) and China's Position on the China-US Economic and Trade Consultations (June 2019). These two documents represent the official vision of China and its evolution, in accordance with contextual changes. The research develops a theoretical framework focused on Chinese political rationality and its peculiarities. To make this conceptual framework transparent, it is compared with western political rationality. Different dimensions are worked on: political inclusion of actors in decision-making processes, framework for political action, processes of political action, the logic to determine solutions, and time horizon of political action. In the West, democratic horizontality grants argumentative flexibility, and stable frameworks for action restrict it. In China, institutional dynamism grants argumentative flexibility and the hierarchical and particular order restricts it. Democracy with stability versus hierarchy with change: both political schemes establish the argumentative limits. In other words, the dimensions of political rationality have a direct impact on the content and form of Chinese political discourse. Agenda studies is used strategically in this research to analyze Chinese political discourse. The pragmatic use of language and the combination of Confucianism and Marxism in Chinese political discourse can be identified from the perspective of agenda studies. In other words, an agenda approach allows us to consider different dimensions of Chinese political rationality and rhetoric: hierarchy established in a text; non-linearity of the solutions agenda; enabling, contradictory and strategic frameworks; particular context and its relation to general context; and finally, dynamism of the information content. The two specific research questions in this article are: How does China define and particularize its agenda in the trade war with the United States? What trends can be identified in an evolutionary analysis over this agenda? Our research hypothesis is: In Chinese official documents on the trade war with the United States, there are trends regarding political agenda, particularistic resources and an articulation of both. From a methodological point of view, the emergence of new technologies has allowed for the expansion of the frontiers of textual analysis. The present work uses cutting edge automatic natural language processing tools to study the Chinese agenda, such as: identification of parts of speech (Part of Speech Tagging), construction of concordance matrices (with Key Word in Context framework), named entity recognition, and relationship vectors calculation. Also, comparative analysis techniques are used to analyze evolution of the PRC's agenda in the trade war with the United States. In this way, the work proposes an original contribution (theoretical and empirical) to the field of social and political agenda studies, by adapting them to Chinese political rationality and discourse. As conclusions, this investigation demonstrates the fulfillment of the hypothesis, since in the official Chinese documents related to the trade war with the United States there are tendencies on the political agenda, the particularistic resources and the articulation of both. The document The Facts and China's Position on China-US Trade Friction expands the trade discussion towards industrial chains and investments. In this text, measures that correspond to national interests and those that affect the international community are listed, specifying the latter in the WTO arena. Also, goods and services of trade and their rates are particularized with data and proper names. Two other frameworks are relevant: the discussion on intellectual property, and the rules and regulations to foster cooperation. This second one (quite restricted) acts as an enabling framework, although it omits Chinese rhetoric of values and principles. China's Position on the China-US Economic and Trade Consultations document maintains the trend of the central axis of the 2018 document, but it is less aggressive, by centralizing cooperation as an objective. The 2019 document does not offer as important a backing of authoritative resources as the 2018 document does. In addition, the trend of intellectual property debate in China remains very important in the 2019 document. However, as a relevant change, this second document presents a political agenda much closer to the contradictory and dialectical frameworks of China's classical Confucian and Marxist rhetoric (terms such as mutual benefit, mutual respect or win-win relationships are used). There is a marked trend of important coincidences (expanding the discussion from commercial to economic, criticizing protectionism and holding a position in the debate on intellectual property in China), but the differences between documents are also relevant. In particular, the 2019 document embraces in a more friendly way the Chinese political rhetoric of cooperative values and principles, and avoids resources of authority. In this sense, less particularization implies lower levels of orientation. From the point of view of our theoretical framework, both documents seek to highlight collective effectiveness (the development of a global community), and work on problem-solution logics. Furthermore, the change between the two documents reflects the dynamism in China's use of discursive resources. In short, the second document of 2019 shows greater characteristics of a Chinese political discourse which encourages pragmatism. The first document of 2018 develops a more deconstructive position over the western rhetoric of the trade conflict, even using tools that are more typical of scientific discourse (with deductions or inductions from authoritative resources). Chinese political discourse is dynamic, adapting to the context in a multiplicity of possible ways. Identifying continuities and changes in Chinese discourse from the theoretical understanding of its political rationality is essential to interpret current conflicts. ; ¿Qué tendencias pueden identificarse en un análisis evolutivo sobre la agenda china en la guerra comercial con los Estados Unidos? La investigación analiza los dos documentos oficiales en la materia del gobierno de la República Popular China (de septiembre de 2018 y de junio de 2019), desde un marco teórico centrado en la racionalidad política china y en los estudios de agenda, y con herramientas propias del análisis autómatico de textos. Se obtiene como conclusión que el discurso político chino sostiene —como eje central— la intención de expandir el debate comercial a otros significados económicos, mantiene la crítica al proteccionismo y defiende su posición sobre la propiedad intelectual en China. Sin embargo, en el año 2019 en el discurso político chino adquieren una mayor centralidad los valores y principios cooperativos típicos de la retórica política china. Esto se destaca por sobre la estategia china de deconstrucción del discurso occidental sobre el conflicto comercial, lo cual es predominante, con abundante particularización discursiva, en el año 2018.

When we started our preparation for this project only a year ago, our prime concerns were the deepening of the social and economic asymmetries between the North and the South under the impact of the financial crisis, with Germany and Italy providing an example of existential importance for the EU as a whole. Both of us had resided in the two countries for prolonged periods in the past, and we had never witnessed such a surge in antagonistic feelings on both sides of the Alps as occurred during the Euro crisis. This can even be measured: while it had been common in Germany, at the beginning of the crisis, to talk about the PIIGS states (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain), with Italy figuring among them as an important member, the percentage of Italians having a positive image of Germany crashed only from 75 to 65 per cent during the immediate crisis period, and now the majority of the Italians thinks that Germany has too much influence in Europe and that it uses this influence at the expense of Southern Member States. While our application for funding was still pending, we witnessed two crucial events that increased the pertinence of our project way beyond our expectations. First, on the 24 September 2017, for the first time in post-war German history, a far right party entered the German Bundestag with a landslide victory, receiving 14 per cent of the popular vote and 100 parliamentary seats. Second, only five months later in Italy, the far-right Lega party and the Movimento Cinque Stelle emerged as the big winners from the Italian federal elections of the 4th of March 2018. Forming a previously unthinkable coalition between right-wing and left-wing populism, they entered into government. We are not so naïve as to believe that the variety of Europe's crises could be understood and adequately analysed as though these were isolated events. The course of Italy's economic and social policy has so obviously been affected by the migration burdens that Italy has had to shoulder and the lack of European solidarity; the bitter disappointment could be turned into populist critique of the constraints that European rule imposes upon national policies and the public announcement of disobedience by members of the Italian government. In a similar vein, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany had been founded as an anti-Euro rescue party, which catalysed quickly through the immigration crisis of 2015 into a xenophobic far-right populist party, sharing many positions with the Italian Lega. While the parties and alliances in both countries had capitalised very much upon the antagonisms between Italy and Germany and their positions during the Euro crisis by building on nationalist sentiments, today we have reached a true anti-climax when one observes that the intensification of tensions are accompanied by the founding of new alliances and a contagion towards formerly non-populist and non-far right parties in both countries: "Europe does not want migrants, it wants our money" (Luigi Di Maio); "Migration is the Mother of all problems" (Horst Seehofer). Both the AfD in Germany and the Lega in Italy share two major targets against which they direct their rage: European integration, especially in the economic realm, and immigration. We refrain, however, from attempting to disentangle all these interdependencies, but hope that our study of the two exemplary cases of Italy and Germany will provide us with some answers to the question of what led us down this road. We believe that the approach which we have pursued in our design of this project provides illuminating insights of lasting importance. ; Acknowledgements 6 ;Introductory Explanations 6; Contributors 20; A) The Political Economy of Germany and Italy;The German Political Economy under the Euro – and a Comparison to the "Southern Model" - Philip Manow 27; The Political Economy of Public Sector Wage-setting in Germany and Italy - Donato Di Carlo 48;Geo-Politics of Exporting Too Much: Contrasting Trajectories of Germany and Japan - Margarita Estévez-Abe 63; Ideational Differences between Italian and German Governments during the Crisis -Frederico Bruno 74; A Cultural Political Economy Approach to the European Crisis - Josef Hien 80; B) Sectors of the Political Economy of Italy and Germany;Worlds Apart: The Divergence of Southern-European Housing-Construction Economies and Northern European Export Economies - Sebastian Kohl & Alexander Spielau 99;Banking Crisis Interventions in Germany and Italy: the Unpleasant Case of the New European Bank Resolution Framework -Frederik Traut 108;Comparing the German and Italian Approaches to Banking Union - Lucia Quaglia 120; Maternal employment, attitudes toward gender equality and work-family policies. German-Italian Discrepancies? - Agnes Blome 129;C) German and Italian Perceptions, Differences and Misgivings;Italy and Germany during the Crisis: Support for the EU and Reciprocal Views - Alessandro Pellegata 140;The Political Space in Italy and Germany during the Crisis: Italian and German Populism Compared - Hanspeter Kriesi148;The political economy of recovery in Southern Europe - Manos Matsaganis 157;Accommodating EU's influence vs protecting national sovereignty. - Ilaria Madama and Matteo Jessoula 162; European Integration and Political Ownership: Fiction and Reality behind Structural Reforms and Risk-Sharing - Filippo Taddei 170;D) The Legacy of the Welfare State in Europe;An Alternative to the Constitution of the EU's Single Market? - Florian Rödl 176; Industrial Relations and Labour Law in the EU Economic Governance Mechanisms:The Cases of Italy and Germany - Francesco Costamagna 182; What to expect from Germany for the European Pillar of Social Rights and beyond? - Marcel Hadeed 188; The EU Political Culture of Total Optimism is not Dead: Reflections on the European Pillar of Social Rights - Vladimir Bogoeski 196;A 'more political' leadership for the President of the Commission? A mixed-methods language-based analysis -Pamela Pansardi 201;E) The Demise of Law; The EU as "Honest Broker"? German and Italian Perspectives on an Adminstrative Body -Anna Katharina Mangold 215; Integration-through-crisis as a distinct integrative mode: Placing expediency ahead of democracy? - Nicole Scicluna 220; Should the Specifics of National Political Cultures be Characterised as "Democratic Acquis" and Can they be Defended by Law? Beyond the Nostalgia-Controversy between JÜrgen Habermas and Wolfgang Streeck -Christian Joerges 229; The End of the Universality of Norms as a Model for Europe: The Error of "Seeing like a State" (J.S. Scott) in the Postmodern Condition - Karl-Heinz Ladeur 237; F) Justice Deficits and Solidarity; Is the EU Unjust? - Glyn Morgan 244; A European Minister of Economy and Finance:Assessing the Commission's proposal and Comparing the Positions of Germany and Italy - Tiziano Zgaga 253; Re-solidarizing Europe and Defusing the Crisis - Maurizio Ferrera and Carlo Burelli 263; Summarising Comments; Concluding Remarks: Economic Cultures and the Politics of Interdependence - Visnja Vukov 269; Two Annexes; Order in the Eurozone: Maurizio Ferrera and Claus Offe in Conversation - Maurizio Ferrera and Claus Offe 278; Germany is Quietly Rebalancing its Economy – But This will not Fix the Eurozone's Flaws - Donato Di Carlo 282;

Migration is a fundamental aspect of international political economy (IPE). It encompasses every aspect of the field of study but has been distanced from IPE mainstream. Nonetheless, it is an international phenomenon that requires joint participation and negotiation between the sending and receiving countries to determine their policies. Migration generates interdependence from below, where micro-structures are initiated by the people. States, politic, economic and social aspects are inherently touched by people's mobility. In this article we will highlight the impact that remittances have on the home country, and how dependent Guatemala is on fluctuations of the host country. It will explore how remittances shape Guatemala's economy.This article will follow three main questions: Why do people migrate from Guatemala to the United States? How does emigration impact Guatemala economically and socially? What are the challenges the Guatemalan government faces and needs to overcome to move forward from an ever growing dependency on emigration? It will be argued that remittances generate a greater dependency to the US. Remittances represent one of the main incomes in Guatemala. Not only are they bound to the receiving country's volatility (e.g. economic crisis and immigration law), they are not sustainable in the long term. But underdeveloped countries have yet to realise this in their policies, as remittances feature as a cushion to the balance of payment and emigration a relief to unemployment rates. Nevertheless, it is an issue that has to be targeted immediately. Furthermore, it is argued that social networks are the cornerstone of migration. The social impact on determinants of out-migration, diaspora and return are all intertwined within security issues, where American originated gangs return to their home countries, exporting criminal behaviour (known as the cost of social remittances). (1) Maras in conjunction with organised crime are new actors in determinants of emigration. This vicious circle revolves not only around IPE but becomes an international security issue. The state must act now for it to avoid its own erosion and cataclysm in the long term, taking down its credibility, economy and security.Heated debates come afloat between international migration and economic development. On one hand, there is the assumption that economic development will enhance emigration and others who argue the opposite. This article will favour the latter argument that development will improve conditions for potential migrants to stay home. Since Guatemala's emigration came basically from political instability and insecurity, an important variable is the current economic and security situation. Internal migration and refugee movements initiated during the civil war and terror repression, were it is estimated that over 200,000 people were killed or disappeared. A politically generated migration mobilised and displaced 1.5 million people between 1981 and 1983. (2) Most people fled to neighbouring countries as refugees and asylum seekers. This migration tendency was eased once democracy returned and peace accords signed in 1996. There are currently 1.4 million Guatemalan migrants in the US, of which more than half are undocumented. Violence in Guatemala has not ceased and therefore maras or gangs, corruption and insecurity are current out-migration push factors. Development should include not only economic development (higher GDP), but should be complemented with social development that pursues poverty alleviation, education, and security.Remittances have captured most of the attention concerning migration. Worker remittances are defined as 'the quantity of currency that migrants earn abroad and then send home to their families and communities'. (3) They are a source of foreign (hard) currency and can be used towards consumption, savings, investment, affecting both the household's and the country's economy. Globally, remittances to middle and low income countries in 1990 amounted to US$ 31 billion; in 2006 the amount increased to US$ 200 billion. (4) One fourth was sent to Latin America of which US$ 52 billion were sent back and can be compared to foreign direct investment (FDI) and official development assistance (ODA) flows.A growing concern in Latin America refers to remittances vis-à-vis GDP. Mexico is the first recipient of remittances in Latin America (net billion and in 2005 represented 45% of recipient of remittances). In Guatemala, remittances constitute one of the highest sources of household income and represent a large percentage of the country's GDP (11,3%) compared to the less than 5% in Mexico. Given the importance of economic migrants sending money home, any fluctuation or variation in the receiving country will make the sending countries even more vulnerable and dependant than what they already are. Latin American countries face a big challenge: create more employment possibilities at home and persuade potential migrants to stay, or ignore and continue, in their best interest, encouraging emigration to ease unemployment rates and gain from remittances. Until now, remittances have been a consistent income for developing countries. They constitute a positive aspect of emigration. However, in the long run, a country cannot rely on 'comfortable' income from emigrants dissatisfied by their government's instability and incapacity to create jobs, and wage differential. The free ride is bound to end, and attention has to be paid before it is too late. (5) Guatemala has become excessively reliant on remittances. The main setback is that they are not sustainable in a long term. If the trend continues, further emigration will stimulate depopulation of the home country. Consequently, economic development through GDP is not the long term answer to fight off dependence on remittances. On the other hand, social and human development needs to be fostered and invest in education, healthcare, poverty reduction and security.The latter issue has given migration a new twist. It represents another major issue to governments to tackle urgently, and a determinant of further emigration due to the growing violence in the territory, just as civil war times in Guatemala. International organised crime and migration has to seek state intervention and international cooperation. If migration and security are not managed wisely, Guatemala can expect a downward spiral and meltdown in the long term. (1) Alejandro Portes, Migration and Development: A Conceptual Review of the Evidence', Working Paper, Red Internacional Migracion y Desarrollo, 2006. http://meme.phpwebhosting.com/~migracion/rimd/bellagio/2.pdf Accessed on 17/08/2010.p. 19.(2) IOM, 'Guatemala, Country Profile', http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/guatemala Accessed on 01/08/2010.(3) Manuel Orozco, 'Globalization and Migration: the Impact of Family Remittances in Latin America', Latin American Politics and Society, 44:2 (Summer 2002), p. 43.(4) Acosta, Pablo, Fajnzylber, and Lopez, J. Humberto, 'How Important Are Remittances in Latin America?, in Pablo Fajnzylber and J. Humbert Lopez, eds., Remittances and Development: Lessons from Latin America. Washington DC: World Bank/The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2008, p.1. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLAC/Resources/Remittances_and_Development_Report.pdf Accessed on 30/08/2010.(5) Emigration has been sought as a 'necessary evil': 'supplying needed short-term economic and social benefits but also imposing immediate human and cultural host hindering long-term development'. Marc R. Rosenblum, 'Moving Beyond the Policy of No Policy: Emigration from Mexico and Central America', Latin American Politics and Society, volume 46, number 4, Winter 2004, p. 104.*Licenciada en Estudios Internacionales - Universidad ORT Uruguay.MA. International Political EconomyUniversity of Warwick Graduate

For years I have asked my Intro to Comparative Politics class: what would it take for your generation to abandon its passivity and lack of interest in politics and become mobilized as students all over the world did in the 1960s? From the évènements de mai in Paris to the sit-ins against Vietnam and police brutality in American universities, to the strikes against oligarchic democracies in South America, those were the times when the terms "young" and "mobilized" were almost synonyms.In response to this question, my students would just laugh softly, shuffle in their seats and avoid a direct answer. A couple of times someone would say: "well, if the government took away our rights, we would certainly do something about that…"After twenty years of teaching, I think I have the answer─ for the American youth to become mobilized, it takes fear and loss of national self-confidence, usually due to ineffective presidents who, through their misconceived and reckless policies, escalate the level and intensity of an earlier conflict. Lately, the manic reaction of George W. Bush to September 11, his mediocre and short-sighted populist presidency and his failure in the fake war against terrorism in Iraq, have had that effect.Finally, after eight years of failed foreign policy that certainly has not made the country safer, indeed, many would say it has made it even more vulnerable and hated in the world, students all around the United States are mobilizing around Barack Obama, whose charisma and message have struck such a deep chord in many Americans, that he is being called a "phenomenon" against which it will be very difficult to run a successful traditional campaign.Every twenty years or so, after a bad war and some wound-licking and soul-searching, Americans coalesce around a leader that reminds them of their national identity, proposes a new way and makes them feel better about themselves and the country's destiny.This happened with John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s, then with Reagan after the shameful decade of the 1970s and now it has happened again.This American tendency of losing its self-esteem follows a clear pattern: after a big fear has engulfed the nation, the government, instead of assuaging those feelings, builds on them to justify its foreign policy adventures. During the late 1950s it was the growing concern with the Soviet threat, the arms race and the competition over the imminent conquest of Space. Kennedy appeared on the scene. Young, passionately articulate, strong and handsome, he reassured the nation about its own strengths and powers. He embodied the hope they yearned for, the hope that could assuage their fear.The foreign policy establishment watched him suspiciously. Wasn't he a big liberal that would be soft on Khrushchev? If elected, he would be the first Catholic President─ wouldn't that mean his first allegiance would be to the Pope and not to the nation?The younger generation was energized, as were others, by this promising young figure and they managed to put him in the White House by a narrow margin.In the short time he was given a chance to govern, before he was abated by a lone gunman on October 16, 1962, he proved himself as a world leader, well-liked by most, yet respected by "the enemy." He restored pride and self-confidence to all Americans, even if behind the scenes he had a much darker side, including increasing the involvement of US in Vietnam and even condoning the CIA killings of certain dictators.Then came the 1970s, the lost war, Nixon and Watergate, and American morale plummeted. This, followed by the Iranian Revolution and Jimmy Carter's failed attempt to rescue the American hostages in Teheran, made the mood even more somber. To the rescue came Reagan, in his entire Hollywood cowboy splendor, with his wonderfully reassuring smile that said: "Vote for me and I will restore your pride!" America became once more the "shining light on the hill", a beacon of freedom and prosperity. He was blessed not only with a great personality but also by destiny: his challenge to Gorbachev ("Mr. Gorbachev, bring down that Wall!") could not have been more perfectly timed. America was back on top. Again, in FDR's uplifting words, we had nothing to fear but fear itself.The 1990s were the times of peace dividends, low mortgage prices, balanced budgets and prosperity for all Americans. The future extended before us, without a cloud in sight. It was the End of History, the end of ideological conflict, and American style democracy and capitalism reigned supreme, unchallenged.Then came September 11, and with it, bunker mentality, the rallying around the opportunist president who could not wait too long before he used the spectacularly terrible attack to gather his posse and plan the completion of the war against Saddam. Americans were scared, and we sacrificed young people's lives and our own personal freedoms in order to be "safe again". It took a while to realize that complete security is an absurd concept, and that good police and intelligence work, together with cooperation with the rest of the world, was the only rational response.Now, five years into an unwinnable war, after a terrible toll of young deaths and injured veterans, many with severe mental problems, the light shines again on a new leader. Out of the shadows comes Barack Obama. He is the poster child of the post-modern candidate: dark, tall, with a winning smile, from a mixed racial and religious background, and a JD degree from Harvard, he dismisses the "silliness" of Washington-style politics and scare tactics, of building walls to keep immigrants out, of eavesdropping on citizens to track down terrorists, of arousing the worst emotions on people for political gains. Instead, he wants to change the face of America, talk to the "enemies", to leave ideology behind and use good ideas pragmatically, even if they happen to be "Republican" ideas. He appeals to a broad base of college educated young white men and women (under 50), African Americans, and even Hispanics.Never mind that his middle name is Hussein, as some insist on bringing up, and that he for a while followed the Muslim faith (he professes to be a Christian now): young people are so tired of the barrage of propaganda against anything and anybody foreign, that they don't even listen. False nationalism based on violence and war does not sway them anymore. Serenely cool, this gifted orator voices the youth's angst, promises change, a new beginning, a fresh approach, and non-partisan solutions to problems. He shares their fatigue with the lies, the corruption, and the meaningless sacrifice of the young in Iraq.He leads, in Max Weber's terms, by a "gift of grace" (charisma), the strongest source of legitimacy at times when the other two, namely tradition and statute, are deeply discredited. His oratory hits the right tones, he inspires devotion, he embodies the confidence the country is thirsty for. Let's move on, he says, and show the world the real face of America. He is more than "a narrow and vain upstart of the moment".He is the post-modern candidate.Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science and Geography Director, ODU Model United Nations Program Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia

Why did Wilsonian ideals influence AEF actions in the First World War, and how did that affect the United States' involvement in the nation's first large-scale coalition operation? Wilsonian ideals influenced the AEF's actions in the First World War because most American leaders and soldiers shared Wilson's concepts of Progressivism and believed that the United States should play a role in saving Europe. Even if some did not agree with Wilson's politics, most doughboys shared his ideas of American Exceptionalism, and these views affected United States involvement in the nation's first large-scale coalition operation. In merging the two topic areas of Wilson's ideologies and AEF involvement in the war, this essay will attempt to answer how the American doughboy found motivation in the same principles that guided President Wilson. ; Master of Arts in Military History ; Week 11 Final Paper Wilsonianism in the First World War: Progressivism, American Exceptionalism, and the AEF Doughboy Brian P. Bailes A paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts in Military History Norwich University MH 562B Dr. John Broom August 16, 2020 Bailes 2 While the duration of American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) involvement in First World War combat operations remained short compared to the armies of the European powers, the experience had a lasting impact on the United States' status as a global power. President Woodrow Wilson's mediation in the European affair throughout American neutrality, his integration of the AEF into Allied operations, and his contribution to the post-war peace process cast him as a central figure of the conflict as well as a harbinger of United States interventionist foreign policy. Through the more than a century since the end of the war, historians have analyzed and debated various facets of United States belligerency. Historians have explored President Wilson's ideologies and the decision making that ultimately led to him making his April 1917 appeal to Congress for American belligerency. Additionally, historians have expanded on AEF actions in Europe and argued how General Pershing's adamancy on maintaining an independent American command created tension with the Allied leaders. Historians have not connected these two topics to analyze how a reader can conceptually link Wilson's ideas and doughboy exploits in Europe. Why did Wilsonian ideals influence AEF actions in the First World War, and how did that affect the United States' involvement in the nation's first large-scale coalition operation? Throughout the historiography of United States involvement in the First World War, specific themes reoccur as significant areas of consensus. The historiography presents two primary arguments in which historians agree. Historians agree that Wilson's peace objectives drastically differed from those of the Allies, and historians agree that these differences motivated Wilson's decisions regarding how the United States would enter the war. Historians also agree that friction existed between General Pershing and the Allied Commanders once the AEF arrived in Europe and began combat operations. These two commonalities in the historiography remain Bailes 3 relatively constant throughout the past 50 years of historical research, and even when portraying more positive sentiments expressed between AEF and Allied soldiers, historians still note some tension between Pershing and the Allied commanders. Historians agree that Wilson's peace objectives differed significantly from those of the Allies. David Woodford argues that the gap between British imperial interests and Wilson's peace objectives affected the alliance between the United States and England throughout the war.1 William Widenor argues that Wilson failed in achieving his goals during the Versailles Peace Settlement because he attempted to make too many concessions for enduring peace, and he claims that Wilson grew at odds with the Allied leaders at the peace conference.2 George Egerton argues that British policymakers were closely monitoring the dispute within the United States Senate during the Treaty of Versailles conference, and he suggests that British leadership remained skeptical of Wilson's League of Nations.3 Historians capture Wilson's opposing peace aims throughout the European conflict, and they seemingly agree on how these aims influenced Wilson's policies and actions. Some historians cite the most significant gap in peace aims as existing between the United States and France. David Stevenson argues that French leaders were continually at odds with Wilson throughout the war as the French war aims focused much more on their national security, which they saw as requiring the destruction of Imperial Germany.4 Stevenson points out that while Wilson's peace aims differed from England as well as France, many French objectives 1 David R. Woodward, Trial by Friendship: Anglo-American Relations, 1917-1918 (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1993), 7-25, 35-43, 77-80, 125-9, 208-20. 2 William C. Widenor, "The United States and the Versailles Peace Settlement," Modern American Diplomacy, eds. John M. Carroll and George C. Herring (Lanham: SR Books, 1996), 46-59. 3 George W. Egerton, "Britain and the 'Great Betrayal': Anglo-American Relations and the Struggle for United States Ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, 1919-1920," The Historical Journal 21, no. 4 (December 1978): 885-911, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2638973. 4 David Stevenson, "French War Aims and the American Challenge, 1914-1918," The Historical Journal 22, no. 4 (December 1979): 877-894, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2638691. Bailes 4 were more aggressive against Germany as they involved reclaiming land lost to Germany in previous wars, specifically the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.5 Stevenson highlights the fact that Wilson could not get French officials to see the "two Germanys" concept that prevailed in American thinking at the time. While the American public generally saw two Germanys – the autocratic ruling party dominated by the Prussian elite and the German people living under that oppressive regime – Stevenson argues that France only saw Imperial Germany as a total enemy.6 Robert Bruce explains that during the post-war occupation period, the American doughboys perceived Frenchmen as distrustful and hateful toward German soldiers, and this sullied the alliance between France and the United States.7 In line with Wilson's ideology, historians cite Wilson's desire for Europe to achieve a "peace without victory" as he attempted to serve as a mediator during the United States period of neutrality. These historians ultimately conclude that Wilson believed any of the European powers achieving their aims through victory would lead to a continuation of balance of power politics in Europe. They argue that Wilson thought merely putting an end to the fighting would be the only way to achieve lasting peace. Ross Gregory argues that Wilson acted as a persistent mediator throughout the war as he strove for a "peace without victory."8 Arthur Link explains that Wilson believed a "peace without victory" and a "draw in Europe" proved the best solution for establishing a new system to replace the broken power structure in Europe.9 Ross Kennedy portrays Wilson as advocating the United States as a neutral mediator striving for a "peace 5 Stevenson, 884, 892-4. 6 Stevenson, 885. 7 Robert B. Bruce, A Fraternity of Arms: America & France in the Great War (Lawrence: The University Press of Kansas, 2003), 286-95. 8 Ross Gregory, The Origins of American Intervention in the First World War (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1971), 115-6. 9 Arthur Link, "Entry into World War I," Progress, War, and Reaction: 1900-1933, eds. Davis R.B. Ross, Alden T. Vaughan, and John B. Duff (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, Inc., 1970), 141. Bailes 5 without victory" before the U.S. entered the war, then as an advocate of "just peace" after they entered the war.10 Kennedy argues that Wilson blamed the international system that led to power politics and wanted to have a separate voice in the peace process to shape a new diplomatic and global political order.11 Historians point to Wilson's ideology as a reason for his differing peace objectives, and historians point to Wilson's Christian faith as a significant motivation for his progressive philosophy. Lloyd Ambrosius highlights Wilson's four tenets of national self-determination, open-door economic globalization, collective security, and progressive history as the framework in which he envisioned a global order shaped by American democratic ideals that would bring the world to peace.12 Ambrosius examines Wilson's embrace of "American Exceptionalism" and looks at how his Anglo-American bias clouded his vision and prevented him from seeing the various cultural factors throughout the world.13 Ronald Pestritto examines Wilson's progressive form of history while arguing that Wilson saw democracy emerging within society as a phenomenon only natural to specific groups of people, and he only saw a few civilizations as "progressed."14 Pestritto notes Wilson's Christian inspiration, referencing early manuscripts written by Wilson titled "Christ's Army" and "Christian Progress."15 William Appleman Williams argues that Wilson maintained a Calvinist idealism that intensified the existing doctrine 10 Ross A. Kennedy, "Woodrow Wilson, World War I, and American National Security," Diplomatic History 25, no. 1 (Winter 2001): 15, 29, https://doi.org/10.1111/0145-2096.00247. 11 Kennedy, "Woodrow Wilson, World War I, and American National Security," 2-3. 12 Lloyd E. Ambrosius, Wilsonianism: Woodrow Wilson and His Legacy in American Foreign Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 2-47. 13 Ambrosius, Wilsonianism, 125-34; Lloyd E. Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson and American Internationalism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 33-49; Lloyd E. Ambrosius, "World War I and the Paradox of Wilsonianism," The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 17 (2018): 5-22, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537781417000548. 14 Ronald J. Pestritto, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005), 6-61. 15 Pestritto, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism, 23, 40. Bailes 6 based on God's supposed ordination of American influence and expansion in the world.16 Richard Gamble explains that Wilson's vision and rhetoric nested with many of the Christian messages of progressive religious leaders in the United States during the First World War who saw the war as a Christian crusade to spread American ideals.17 Historians seem in unanimous agreement that Wilson's separate peace aims formed the primary impetus for him seeking an independent American presence in the war effort. David Esposito argues that Wilson wanted to have an American presence in the war because he realized that to establish a dominant American voice in the post-war peace talks, the United States needed to make a significant contribution to Allied victory.18 Edward Coffman details the United States' experiences in the First World War by explaining Wilson's desire to gain an independent voice in the peace process.19 David Trask maintains that Wilson wanted to "remain somewhat detached from the Allies" in defeating Imperial Germany to provide Wilson leverage so that he could directly influence the post-war peace process.20 Arthur Link explains that Wilson did see the benefit of not joining the Entente but keeping the United States independent of "any political commitments" with the Allies as providing a chance to ensure an American presence at the peace conference.21 Thomas Knock argues that Wilson faulted the "balance of power" politics of Europe and saw the United States as the actor to save Europe and create a new system of 16 William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1959; New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), 67-112. Page references are to the 2009 edition. 17 Richard M. Gamble, The War for Righteousness: Progressive Christianity, the Great War, and the Rise of the Messianic Nation (Wilmington: ISI Books, 2003), 22-3, 86-208, 254-5. 18 David M. Esposito, "Woodrow Wilson and the Origins of the AEF," Presidential Studies Quarterly 19 no. 1 (Winter 1989): 127-38, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40574570. 19 Edward M. Coffman, The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1968), 5-8. 20 David F. Trask, The AEF & Coalition Warmaking, 1917-1918 (Lawrence: The University Press of Kansas, 1993), 2-6. 21 Link, "Entry into World War I," 141. Bailes 7 diplomacy.22 Overall, historians agree that President Wilson desired very different peace outcomes for a post-war Europe, and this influenced him as he made decisions regarding United States actions throughout the war. In addition to the agreement that Wilson's peace aims differed from the Allies, historians also agree that once the United States did enter the war and the AEF arrived in Europe, friction quickly developed between General Pershing and the Allied commanders. David Trask argues many instances of "increasing friction" existed between Pershing and the French and British command. Trask includes a case where the Allies "attempted to bypass Pershing" by working directly with Wilson even though Wilson had appointed Pershing as Commander in Chief of the AEF.23 Trask argues that Pershing believed that the preceding few years of trench warfare had "deprived the French and even the British of offensive spirit," and he maintains that with Pershing's "open warfare" tactics, his methods of training drastically differed from the Allies.24 Michael Adas cites disagreement between Pershing and the Allied commanders immediately after Pershing arrived in France due to Pershing's unwillingness to listen to the experienced French and British leaders as they tried to suggest ways to employ the AEF.25 Adas argues that Pershing's desire to pursue "open warfare" did not take into account the realities of trench warfare and resulted in costly casualties.26 Russell Weigley cites frequent tensions between Pershing and the Allied commanders, including an example in September of 1918 in which AEF 22 Thomas J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest For a New World Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), 30-69. 23 Trask, AEF & Coalition Warmaking, 38-9. 24 Trask, AEF & Coalition Warmaking, 19. 25 Michael Adas, "Ambivalent Ally: American Military Intervention and the Endgame and Legacy of World War I," Diplomatic History 38 no. 4 (September 2014): 705-7, http://doi.org/10.1093/dh.dhu032. 26 Adas, "Ambivalent Ally," 710. Bailes 8 "traffic congestion" caused a significant disturbance in a visit from Georges Clemenceau.27 Weigley explains that Pershing's belief in "open warfare" would not work due to the enormous American divisions built for the trenches, arguing that Pershing would need "smaller, maneuverable divisions" if he wanted his open warfare to work.28 All historians agree that the issue of AEF amalgamation with the French and British forces served as the primary reason for the friction between the military leaders. David Woodford cites the notion that AEF amalgamation would "undermin[e] the significance of the American military role." Hence, Pershing remained adamant in his stance not to let the Allies use American soldiers to fight under French or British flags.29 Woodward notes that Pershing felt his AEF superior to the Allies as he "believed that the Americans had almost nothing to learn from French and British officers."30 Woodford explains that war aims and peace objectives formed the basis of a fractured Anglo-American relationship that finally crumbled during the peace conference.31 Mitchell Yockelson argues that despite tension between Pershing and the Allied leaders regarding the question of amalgamation, the 27th and 30th Divisions contributed significantly to the Allied effort under British command. Yockelson highlights a fascinating illustration of Pershing's stubbornness in noting that Pershing did not follow the exploits of these divisions even though they proved instrumental in the offensive against the Hindenburg Line.32 As an enduring theme throughout the amalgamation debate, historians point to Pershing's desire for the United States to deliver the decisive blow against Germany with an independent 27 Russell F. Weigley, "Strategy and Total War in the United States: Pershing and the American Military Tradition," Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914-1918, eds. Roger Chickering and Stig Förster (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 333. 28 Weigley, "Pershing and the American Military Tradition," 341-2. 29 Woodward, Trial by Friendship, 57-8. 30 Woodward, 88. 31 Woodward, 7-80, 112-220. 32 Mitchell A. Yockelson, Borrowed Soldiers: Americans Under British Command, 1918 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008), 92-228. Bailes 9 American army. Allan Millett argues that Wilson gave Pershing the explicit directive to keep the AEF separate from the Allies and allowed Pershing the freedom to make decisions on how to integrate the AEF.33 Millett cites Pershing's initial plan to use an AEF offensive on Metz as the critical blow that would decide the war and establish an American contribution to defeating Imperial Germany. Pershing would not have his AEF ready to carry out this offensive until 1919, and his stubbornness in dealing with the requests for amalgamation in the interim "frustrated the Allies."34 Bullitt Lowry narrates Pershing's attempt to shape the post-war peace terms by arguing that Pershing wanted to force Germany into an "unconditional surrender." While Lowry concludes that Pershing's effort to influence the political realm failed, he believed that the only way to "guarantee victory" would be to crush Germany in battle.35 David Woodward argues that Pershing believed that the AEF would decide the war by becoming "the dominant role in the war against Germany."36 Woodward cites Pershing's ideas regarding "the aggressive American rifleman, whose tradition of marksmanship and frontier warfare" could rid the Western Front of trench warfare and execute a great offensive against Germany.37 Historians cite the notion throughout the ranks of the AEF that the United States should remain independent from the Allies, and historians point to the fact that many doughboys saw themselves as superior soldiers to the Allies. Robert H. Zieger argues that "virtually the entire military establishment" agreed with Pershing's desire to have an independent American 33 Allan R. Millett, "Over Where? The AEF and the American Strategy for Victory, 1917-1918," Against All Enemies: Interpretations of American Military History from Colonial Times to the Present, eds. Kenneth J. Hagan and William R. Roberts (Westport: Greenwood Press, Inc., 1986), 237. 34 Millett, "Over Where?," 239. 35 Bullitt Lowry, "Pershing and the Armistice," The Journal of American History 55 no. 2, (September 1968): 281-291, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1899558. 36 Woodward, Trial by Friendship, 81. 37 Woodward, 89, 207. Bailes 10 command.38 Still, Zieger does note that this separate American command relied heavily on the Allies for logistics support, and the AEF "misunderstood the military dynamics of the Western Front."39 Richard Faulkner argues that Pershing's doctrine rested on his belief that the "superior American rifle marksmanship, aggressiveness, and skilled maneuvering" could win the fight for the Allies.40 Faulkner argues that American soldiers saw themselves as intervening in the war effort to help the failing French and British, taunting their British partners by claiming AEF stands for "After England Failed." He devotes a chapter named as such to explain the AEF belief in the superiority of the American fighting man.41 Harold Winton argues that Pershing believed that the United States soldier was superior to his European counterpart.42 Jennifer Keene argues that issues such as the treatment of African-American soldiers and disagreements about which nation contributed the most to the Allied victory created rifts between the two allies.43 In her full text, Keene narrates AEF interactions with their French Allies, and she claims that doughboys saw themselves as superior fighters who could help turn the tide of war.44 Michael Neiberg explains that United States citizens and soldiers came away from the conflict with the belief in the "inherent superiority" of the American system over that of Europe.45 38 Robert H. Zieger, America's Great War: World War I and the American Experience (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000), 92-102. 39 Zieger, America's Great War, 96. 40 Faulkner, Pershing's Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War I (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017), 285. 41 Faulkner, 281-304. 42 Harold Winton, "Toward an American Philosophy of Command," The Journal of Military History 64, no. 4 (October 2000): 1059, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2677266. 43 Jennifer D. Keene, "Uneasy Alliances: French Military Intelligence and the American Army During the First World War," Intelligence and National Security 13, no. 1 (January 2008): 18-36, https://doi.org/10.1080/02684529808432461. 44 Jennifer D. Keene, Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 105-11. 45 Michael S. Neiberg, The Path to War: How The First World War Created Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 23. Bailes 11 Even when historians convey a more positive relationship between the AEF and their Allied counterparts, they still address the tension between Pershing and Allied leadership. Robert Bruce portrays a much more positive partnership between the doughboy and his French ally. Bruce documents Marshal Joseph Joffre's visit to the United States after Congress declared war against Germany to muster American support for the French. By comparing France's visit to Britain's, Bruce argues that Joffre established the framework for an intimate Franco-American partnership.46 Bruce maintains that the French respected the American soldier and viewed the entry of the AEF into the war as the saving grace of the Allies. Bruce narrates a bond between doughboys and French troops that increased as they trained and fought together.47 Despite this positive portrayal by Bruce of the French and AEF bond, Bruce still highlights the tension in Pershing's interactions with French commanders as well as noting the general perception amongst French commanders that Pershing thought "he knew everything there was to know about modern warfare."48 Bruce adds that different peace aims and post-war sentiments towards Germany created disagreements amongst American and French soldiers that fractured the relationship built during the war.49 Of note, Bruce suggests that the doughboys harbored what they saw as a "perceived lack of aggressiveness in the French."50 After synthesizing the historiography, the question remains regarding how these two arguments can be linked. Why did Wilsonian ideals influence AEF actions in the First World War, and how did that affect the United States' involvement in the nation's first large-scale 46 Robert B. Bruce, "America Embraces France: Marshal Joseph Joffre and the French Mission to the United States, April-May 1917," Journal of Military History 66 no. 2 (April 2002): 407-441, http://doi.org/10.2307/3093066; Bruce, A Fraternity of Arms, 32-59. 47 Bruce, A Fraternity of Arms, 86-121. 48 Bruce, A Fraternity of Arms, 128, 143. 49 Bruce, A Fraternity of Arms, 286-95. 50 Bruce, A Fraternity of Arms, 122. Bailes 12 coalition operation? Wilsonian ideals influenced the AEF's actions in the First World War because most American leaders and soldiers shared Wilson's concepts of Progressivism and believed that the United States should play a role in saving Europe. Even if some did not agree with Wilson's politics, most doughboys shared his ideas of American Exceptionalism, and these views affected United States involvement in the nation's first large-scale coalition operation. In merging the two topic areas of Wilson's ideologies and AEF involvement in the war, this essay will attempt to answer how the American doughboy found motivation in the same principles that guided President Wilson. Perhaps a reader will identify that the AEF demonstrated trends in Europe that highlight an "American way of war" that still resonates in United States coalition operations today. When President Wilson brought the United States into the First World War in April of 1917, he sold it as an effort to make the world safe for democracy. In Wilson's war address to Congress, Wilson called Imperial Germany's resumption of their unrestricted submarine campaign "warfare against mankind."51 Wilson maintained that Imperial Germany had given the United States no other choice but to declare war when they resumed their submarine attacks on merchant ships in the early spring of 1917. Still, Wilson furthered his justification for war by appealing to the broader ideal of fighting to defeat the Imperial German autocracy. Wilson described the "selfish and autocratic power" against which a free people needed to wage war.52 Later in his address, Wilson stated that he found hope in what he saw as the restoration of power to the people demonstrated in the Russian Revolution. Wilson saw a pre-Lenin revolution as 51 Woodrow Wilson, "Address to a Joint Session of Congress Calling for a Declaration of War" in "President Wilson," Essential Writings and Speeches of the Scholar-President, ed. Mario R. DiNunzio (New York: NYU Press, 2006): 399, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qfgbg.15. 52 Wilson, "Declaration of War," 400. Bailes 13 bringing democracy to the people of Russia, and it opened the door for the realization that the Allies fought because "the world must be made safe for democracy."53 Arthur Link comments on Wilson's initial optimism on hearing of the Russian Revolution overthrowing Czar rule.54 While the Russian Revolution took a different turn in the following years, the initial news of the Russian people revolting against the Czar gave Wilson confidence that democracy could spread in Europe since now the Allies truly represented a democratic system. Wilson had spent the first years of the war trying to mediate peace in Europe through United States neutrality, and he tried to negotiate an end to the fighting without a victory for any of the imperial belligerents. Wilson did not see a lasting peace coming to Europe if any of the imperial powers achieved their peace objectives, so he attempted to mediate a truce. Kendrick Clements narrates how Wilson's desire to keep the United States neutral grew at odds with his economic support for the Allies. War for the United States rose to be more likely as Imperial Germany became increasingly aggravated with the United States for supplying aid to France and Britain while professing neutrality.55 Fraser Harbutt argues that at the initial outbreak of war in Europe, leaders as well as citizens of the United States concerned themselves with the economic impacts of the war primarily, and the United States benefited economically by supporting the Allies, specifically in the steel trade.56 Imperial Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare, as well as the capture of Germany's Zimmerman Telegram in January 1917, soliciting an alliance with Mexico, prompted Wilson to support waging war on Imperial Germany. Now American entry into the conflict presented Wilson with some new options for shaping the post- 53 Wilson, "Declaration of War," 401-2. 54 Link, "Entry into World War I," 122-3. 55 Kendrick A. Clements, "Woodrow Wilson and World War I," Presidential Studies Quarterly 34, no. 1 (March 2004: 62-82, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27552564. 56 Fraser J. Harbutt, "War, Peace, and Commerce: The American Reaction to the Outbreak of World War I in Europe 1914," An Improbable War? The Outbreak of World War I and European Political Culture Before 1914, eds. Holger Afflerbach and David Stevenson (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007), 320-1. Bailes 14 war world. Thomas Knock describes how even though the United States entry into the war meant the essential failure of Wilson's "Peace Without Victory," the international community had seemingly bought into Wilson's concept of "collective security."57 In the previous few years of American neutrality, Wilson had advocated for creating a collection of democratic nation-states to band together to prevent war, and by 1917 the international community seemed interested. Wilson would use American belligerency to shape his new world order for peace. Russia's withdrawal from the war in March of 1918 made the need for a United States presence all the more significant for the Allies. The American soldier would be a crusader of sorts, attempting to cure Europe of the diplomacy of old that had brought her to destruction. The European July crisis of 1914 that erupted in a full-scale war the following month proved to be the culmination of decades of the European balance of power diplomacy that led to rival alliances and an armament race between the feuding dynasties.58 European power politics had dominated the continent for centuries, which inevitably escalated into a world war, and the United States soldier would have the opportunity to save the nations from which most of their ancestors had descended. Michael Neiberg argues that by 1917, the American people felt an obligation to enter the war to save Europe. While the people of the United States supported neutrality initially, Neiberg explains that public opinion swayed over time toward a desire to save Europe from the terror of Imperial Germany.59 The United States Secretary of War from 1916-1921, Newton Baker, published a text almost two decades after the armistice in which he maintained that the United States went to war to stop Imperial Germany and make the world safe for democracy. Baker took issue with the 57 Knock, To End All Wars, 115. 58 James Joll and Gordon Martel, The Origins of the First World War, 3rd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2013), 9-291. 59 Neiberg, The Path to War, 7-8, 31-3, 235. Bailes 15 historians of the 20s and 30s who claimed that economic interest influenced the United States entry into the war, and he argued they ignored the necessity of U.S. involvement to stop Germany. Baker explained that the American public remained overwhelmingly critical of the German autocracy and desired to intervene to save the European people.60 Private Alexander Clay of the AEF's 33rd Division demonstrated this sense of duty as he wrote regarding his 1918 deployment to France. As Clay's ship passed the Statue of Liberty while leaving the New York harbor, he thought to himself of the French leader Lafayette's role in securing United States victory during the American Revolution. He wrote that the AEF went to France to "repay the debt of our gratitude to your country for your country's alliance with our country in obtaining liberty from an oppressor England."61 For the United States to effectively reshape the world, there needed to be an independent American command that would ensure the United States contributed to the victory over Imperial Germany, which would give Wilson his seat at the post-war peace talks. In a January 22, 1917 address to the Senate in which he articulated his vision for peace in Europe, Wilson claimed that the warring European nations could not shape a lasting peace. While Wilson still did not advocate for United States intervention at this point, he did state that to achieve peace "[i]t will be absolutely necessary that a force be created as a guarantor of the permanency of the settlement so much greater than the force of any nation now engaged or any alliance hitherto formed or projected that no nation, no probable combination of nations could face or withstand it."62 In this speech, Wilson advocated for a "peace without victory" because he did not envision a peaceful 60 Newton D. Baker, Why We Went to War (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1936), 4-10, 20, 160-3. 61 Private Alexander Clay in American Voices of World War I: Primary Source Documents, 1917-1920, ed. Martic Marix Evans (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2001; New York: Routledge, 2013), 19, Kindle. 62 Woodrow Wilson, "Essential Terms for Peace in Europe" in "President Wilson," Essential Writings and Speeches of the Scholar-President, 393. Bailes 16 outcome if any of the imperial powers achieved victorious peace terms.63 Wilson reiterated his stance that the United States should play a decisive role in shaping post-war Europe and ensuring that "American principles" guided the rest of the world.64 When the United States declared war against Imperial Germany a few months after this speech, it essentially put Wilson's vision into motion. Diplomatic historian William Widenor argues that Wilson realized that the United States needed to participate in the war "rather than as an onlooker" to achieve his visions for peace.65 Widenor notes Wilson's desire for the United States to enter the war as an "associate" to the Entente as opposed to an "ally," and Widenor maintains that Wilson desired to change the world and "democratize and also, unfortunately, to Americanize it."66 The late international historian Elisabeth Glaser captures the Wilson administration's balancing between maintaining an economic relationship with the Entente powers while attempting to remain "an independent arbiter in the conflict."67 Wilson appointed General Pershing to lead the American effort, and Wilson gave him the simple instruction to keep the American Expeditionary Forces as a command separate from the Allies. In 1928, the Army War College published The Genesis of the American First Army, which documented the details surrounding how the War Department created an independent army of the United States. The text includes a caption from Secretary of War Baker's memorandum to Pershing. Baker informed Pershing of Wilson's order to "cooperate with the forces of the other countries employed against the enemy; but in so doing the underlying idea must be kept in view that the forces of the United States are a separate and distinct component of 63 Wilson, "Essential Terms for Peace in Europe," 394. 64 Wilson, 396-7. 65 William C. Widenor, "The United States and the Versailles Peace Settlement," 42. 66 Widenor, 42-3. 67 Elisabeth Glaser, "Better Late than Never: The American Economic War Effort, 1917-1918," Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914-1918, eds. Roger Chickering and Stig Förster (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 390. Bailes 17 the combined forces, the identity of which must be preserved."68 The President did give Pershing the authority to decide how the AEF would integrate into Allied operations. Upon Pershing's June 13, 1917 arrival in Paris, he began making decisions regarding AEF employment as it pertained to logistics, training, and an initial American area of operations on the Western Front. With a plan of achieving a force of 1,328,448 men in France by the end of 1918, Pershing needed to ensure his troops were able to build combat power and prepare for war while simultaneously ensuring that he maintained a distinct American command.69 The following 17 months of conflict with American boots on the ground in Europe saw significant political and diplomatic friction between Pershing and the Allied commanders. Pershing attempted to keep his AEF intact while satisfying Allied requests for American soldiers to replace French and British casualties, especially when Germany launched their Spring 1918 offensives. Pershing described in his memoirs that the French and British requested American soldiers to fill their gaps on the front lines when they had each sent diplomatic missions to America shortly after the United States entered the war. Pershing maintained his adamancy against the United States "becoming a recruiting agency for either the French or British," and he recounted that the War Department retained his position as well.70 While Allied leaders ostensibly supported having an independent American army participate in the war effort, the need to replace casualties in the trenches proved to be their immediate concern. Russia withdrawing from the conflict allowed Germany to reinforce their strength on the Western Front and mount a series of offensives. Germany knew they had a limited window of time for victory 68 Army War College (U.S.) Historical Section, The Genesis of the American First Army (Army War College, 1928), Reprints from the collection of the University of Michigan Library (Coppell, TX, 2020), 2. 69 The Genesis of the American First Army, 2-9. 70 John J. Pershing, My Experiences in the World War, vol. 1 (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1931), 30-3. Bailes 18 with the United States continuing to build combat power, so they surged in the early months of 1918. Pershing faced a strategic dilemma of trying to support the Allies and get his troops in the fight while simultaneously attempting to build an independent American army. Ultimately, Pershing gave the Allies some of his army divisions as much needed replacements, and he made an effort to ensure that these divisions remained as intact as possible. Pershing endeavored to organize these divisions under a U.S. corps level command, but this corps command proved mostly administrative rather than tactical.71 By the time Pershing activated his independent American First Army, it only spent a few months in combat. The temporarily amalgamated doughboys Pershing gave to the Allies to meet their requests had contributed more to the defeat of Imperial Germany than Pershing's independent army. Mostly because Pershing had interspersed his divisions throughout the French and British fronts to meet the Allied requests for replacements, the American First Army did not activate until August of 1918. The September 20-25 Meuse-Argonne offensive would be the first significant operation for Pershing's independent army.72 David Trask concludes his critique of Pershing by recognizing the contribution that the American soldier played in providing manpower to the Allies. Trask commends the bravery of the American doughboy, but he argues that the amalgamated U.S. divisions contributed more to victory than the American First Army.73 In a similar vein, Mitchell Yockelson contends that the 27th and 30th Divisions who remained under British command throughout the war benefited over the rest of the AEF from extensive training led by the experienced British troops, and they contributed significantly to the Allied 71 The Genesis of the American First Army, 9-46. 72 John J. Pershing, Final Report of Gen. John J. Pershing: Commander-in-Chief American Expeditionary Forces. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1919), 37-8; The Genesis of the American First Army, 45-58. 73 Trask, The AEF & Coalition Warmaking, 174-7. Bailes 19 victory.74 Pershing detailed his plans to capitalize on the initiative gained with his Meuse-Argonne offensive to deliver his decisive blow against Germany. The November 11 armistice came before he could achieve his grand vision.75 While the American doughboy played a critical role in providing an Allied victory over Imperial Germany, Pershing never realized his concept of an independent American command autonomously crushing the German army. The American soldier contributed most significantly to the Allied victory by taking part in offensives planned and conducted under the control of French and British Generals. Understanding American motivation during the war effort requires understanding the Progressive Movement taking place in the early-twentieth-century United States. Michael McGerr writes a detailed account of the cause and effect of the Progressive Movement. McGerr describes the wealth disparity brought about by Victorian society and the Gilded Age, and the class conflict emerging from this gave birth to a social and political movement that attempted to enact massive change in the American system.76 McGerr claims that the Progressive Movement attempted such major reform that no social or political action since has tried "anything as ambitious" due to the adverse reactions of such massive change.77 The Progressive Movement engulfed American society and brought about changes in family structures, race relations, and governmental powers. Herbert Croly illustrated the drive for monumental change rooted in the Progressive Movement with his text Progressive Democracy. In his narrative, Croly advocated for a complete overhaul of the American system to achieve freedom and alleviate wealth disparity. Croly saw governmental reform as the method for spreading democracy to all 74 Yockelson, Borrowed Soldiers, 213-23. 75 Pershing, My Experiences in the World War, vol. 2, 355-87. 76 McGerr, A Fierce Discontent, 3-146. 77 McGerr, 315-9. Bailes 20 citizens.78 In describing American public opinion during the time of United States entry into World War I, David Kennedy argues that for those Americans who championed progressive ideals, "the war's opportunities were not to be pursued in the kingdom of commerce but in the realm of the spirit."79 While the United States maintained a formidable economic link with the Allies throughout American neutrality, Wilson appealed to American ideals to garner public support for the war. United States entry into the war did not come as the natural development of the Progressive Movement. Still, the American public's reason for supporting the war certainly borrowed progressive sentiments. Wilson championed progressive initiatives that had ingrained themselves in the national mood of early-twentieth-century America. Wilson ran for President in 1912 on the principles he codified the following year in his text The New Freedom. Wilson argued that the Jefferson era of United States democracy had long ended. Wilson maintained that because of the new complexities found in American society, a "reconstruction in the United States" needed to occur to achieve real economic and social freedom.80 Ronald Pestritto articulates Wilson's vision for a governmental system as it relates to a society's history and progress. According to Wilson, the method of government that works for people depends on how far that population has progressed. In that manner, the government should always change to reflect the progression of its people best.81 Pestritto argues that a major theme found in Wilson's 1908 text Constitutional Government in the United States rests in the idea that: [T]here are four stages through which all governments pass: (1) government is the master and people are its subjects; (2) government remains the master, not through 78 Herbert Croly, Progressive Democracy (New York: Macmillan, 1914; New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers; Second printing 2006), 25, 103-18. 79 David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 39. 80 Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom: A Call for the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People (New York and Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913), www.philosophical.space/303/Wilson.pdf. 81 Pestritto, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism, 34-42. Bailes 21 force but by its fitness to lead; (3) a stage of agitation, when leaders of the people rise up to challenge the government for power; and (4) the final stage, where the people become fully self-conscious and have leaders of their own choosing.82 Wilson epitomized the Progressive Movement's ideals regarding the government adapting to the changes of the people to create a more representative system of government. He would appeal to these principles in advocating for United States intervention in Europe. An underlying sentiment existed within the Progressive Movement that sought to bring about massive change, and this energy extended into the war effort. Lloyd Ambrosius explains the rise of the United States as an imperial power during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. The outcome of the American Civil War created a more powerful central government, and economic growth during the following decades allowed more opportunity for global expansion.83 As the United States extended its global presence, the ideals that formed the nation began to influence foreign policy. David Kennedy writes about the shift in prominent progressives toward support of the war effort. Kennedy references John Dewey as a significant advocate for utilizing the war to satisfy progressive initiatives. According to Kennedy, progressives found appeal in Wilson's reasons for American belligerency in Europe as "a war for democracy, a war to end war, a war to protect liberalism, a war against militarism, a war to redeem barbarous Europe, a crusade."84 Michael McGerr states that the First World War "brought the extraordinary culmination of the Progressive Movement."85 Regardless of the typical progressive view of war, progressives could find merit in Wilson's justification for United States involvement. 82 Pestritto, 37. 83 Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson and American Internationalism, 26-32. 84 Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society, 50-3. 85 McGerr, A Fierce Discontent, 280. Bailes 22 Even though a vast segment of the United States population did not support going to war in Europe, the notion of saving Europe still permeated throughout American society. In a series of essays published in the July 1917 edition of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, multiple thinkers of the time expressed the necessity of the United States entering the war to save Europe. Miles Dawson argued the importance of the United States' mission in the war by documenting the five "fundamentals" that made the United States unique, and he explained the importance of spreading those principles globally. Dawson advocated for the spreading of American ideals throughout the rest of the world.86 George Kirchwey argued that the United States must go to war to defeat Imperial Germany and secure peace. Kirchwey suggested that the war was a fight against an autocratic empire and a crusade to make the world safe for democracy. Kirchwey maintained that the United States needed to lead the effort in creating a world order for peace.87 Samuel Dutton saw the purpose of the United States as transcending party lines. Dutton suggested that the aim of defeating autocratic Imperial Germany needed to be a united American mission.88 Emily Greene Balch wrote that the United States "enters the war on grounds of the highest idealism, as the champion of democracy and world order."89 Walter Lippman argued that once the United States entered the war, they were obligated to fight to make the world safe for democracy. Lippman placed the blame for the war squarely on Germany and their aggression in Belgium and unrestricted submarine warfare. Similar to Wilson in his war address, Lippman drew parallels to the Russian Revolution and the 86 Miles M. Dawson, "The Significance of Our Mission in This War," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 72 (July 1917): 10-13, http://www.jstor.com/stable/1013639. 87 George W. Kirchwey, "Pax Americana," Annals, 40-48, http://www.jstor.com/stable/1013645. 88 Samuel Dutton, "The United States and the War," Annals, 13-19, http://www.jstor.com/stable/1013640. 89 Emily Greene Balch, "The War in Its Relation to Democracy and World Order," Annals, 28-31, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1013643 Bailes 23 importance of it signaling that the Allies truly represented democracy.90 Wilson's reasons for war had found a voice in the academic circles of the United States, and they nested well with the progressive message. Wilson's goals for peace illustrate how Progressive initiatives manifested into the global sphere. In his August 18, 1914 address advocating for the American population to remain neutral during the European conflict, Wilson maintained that the United States held a responsibility "to play a part of impartial mediation and speak the counsels of peace and accommodation, not as a partisan, but as a friend."91 Similarly, when addressing the Senate over two years later communicating his persistent intent of mediating peace in Europe through American neutrality, Wilson criticized the demands for peace submitted by the Entente that sought revenge over Imperial Germany rather than a lasting peace. Wilson instructed that "peace must be followed by some definite concert of power which will make it virtually impossible that any such catastrophe should ever overwhelm us again."92 In line with his progressive ideology, Wilson believed in United States intervention in the European conflict that would fundamentally improve their diplomatic system entirely. The United States would intervene in Europe to not only end the conflict but restructure the political climate in a more peaceful, progressive manner. Kendrick Clements argues that Wilson's economic and diplomatic decisions throughout United States neutrality drew him into the war gradually as he continued to side with the Allies. Wilson attempted to maintain his ideals for peace as the United States continued to get closer to belligerency.93 When the United States entry into the war proved virtually inevitable, Wilson 90 Walter Lippman, "The World Conflict in Its Relation to American Democracy," Annals, 1-10, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1013638. 91 Woodrow Wilson, "An Appeal for Neutrality in World War I," 390. 92 Woodrow Wilson, "Essential Terms for Peace in Europe," 392. 93 Clements, "Woodrow Wilson and World War I," 63-81. Bailes 24 ensured that the reasons for fighting aligned with the progressive energy that moved within American society. A religious vigor inspired military action that can be seen as a product of the Progressive Movement as well. Richard Gamble narrates the origin of the opinion that the United States represented a light for the rest of the world, and he describes how this concept brought the nation into the war. Gamble argues that these Christian ideals drove the political climate as Wilson's vision echoed the religious sentiment, and they prompted men to fight.94 Gamble describes the "social gospel" movement that had energized progressive Christians in the United States as extending into the international realm. The same energy that had influenced Christians to enact domestic change had transcended into a desire to improve the world, and Wilson ensured these sentiments carried over into United States foreign policy.95 Ronald Pestritto argues Wilson's religious conviction and explains that Wilson linked his faith with his duty to help shape the rest of the world. Pestritto explains the belief that "America was a key battleground in the victory of good over evil."96 Richard Gamble's mention of literature such as Washington Gladden's 1886 "Applied Christianity" highlights the popular message of progressive faith that nests with Pestritto's argument.97 Wilson illustrated the linkage of religion and progressive reform when he spoke in Denver, Colorado, in a 1911 build-up to his run for the Presidency. Wilson commented that "liberty is a spiritual conception, and when men take up arms to set other men free, there is something sacred and holy in the warfare."98 Wilson went on to champion the necessity of finding truth in the Bible's message, and he concluded by warning against believing "that 94 Gamble, The War for Righteousness, 5-87. 95 Gamble, 69-87. 96 Pestritto, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism, 40-3. 97 Gamble, The War for Righteousness, 49-67. 98 Woodrow Wilson, "The Bible and Progress" in "On Religion," Essential Writings and Speeches of the Scholar-President, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qfgbg.7, 54. Bailes 25 progress can be divorced from religion."99 To Wilson, Christianity taught the spiritual duty of working toward social progress, and most progressive men of faith believed in these same sentiments which carried over toward United States actions in France. At the core of this Progressive energy and Wilson's peace aims were the sentiments surrounding an idea of American Exceptionalism. Many of the same ideas found in the religious aspect of the need to work for social progression catered to a sense of American Exceptionalism. In the same May 7, 1911 address in Denver, Colorado, Wilson spoke of the greatness of the United States as a direct correlation to the religious zeal and Biblical principles with which the founders had established the nation. According to Wilson, "America has all along claimed the distinction of setting this example to the civilized world."100 Wilson believed that the United States should serve as the model of Christian values for the rest of the world as "America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture."101 In his text In Search of the City on a Hill, Richard Gamble describes how the United States narrative utilized an interpretation of divine providence to create an image of a nation built on religious principles that should serve as an example for the rest of the world.102 Lloyd Ambrosius describes the prevalent belief in the early twentieth-century United States that considered the United States a "providential nation" as citizens attempted to justify global expansion.103 If the United States existed as a providential manifestation of God's will, then that could rationalize the spread of the American system into the international realm. 99 Wilson, "The Bible and Progress," 53-9. 100 Wilson, 56. 101 Wilson, 59. 102 Richard M. Gamble, In Search of the City on a Hill: The Making and Unmakng of an American Myth (London: Continuum International Publishng Group, 2012), 6-119. 103 Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson and Ameriam Internationalism, 33. Bailes 26 Men of faith found a divine message in the need for the United States to intercede in the global sphere to mold the world in her image. Wilson's brand of progressive history nested well with his idea of American Exceptionalism. Lloyd Ambrosius explains Wilson's fundamental belief that "primitive peoples moved toward greater maturity over the generations."104 Wilson applied this to the history of the United States. As Ronald Perstritto describes, Wilson believed that "the history of human progress is the history of the progress of freedom."105 As people progressed, they, in turn, developed a governmental system that allowed for more representation for its citizens. According to Ambrosius, Wilson believed that "the United States represented the culmination of progressive historical development."106 The American people had achieved real progression in Wilson's historical model, and democracy achieved through the American Revolution solidified his theory. Wilson certainly made this point evident in his writings regarding history. Wilson suggests that "the history of the United States demonstrates the spiritual aspects of political development."107 The United States embodied the ideal form of Wilson's progressive history. Wilson saw it as the responsibility of the United States to spread its exceptional personification of progressive history with the rest of the world. Wilson acknowledged his views on the uniqueness of the United States in his New Freedom. While arguing for progressive reform in the states, Wilson stated that "[t]he reason that America was set up was that she might be different from all the nations of the world."108 Indeed, Wilson believed in the providential nature of the United States, and he desired to shape the rest of the world. 104 Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson and American Internationalism, 236. 105 Pestritto, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism, 37. 106 Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson and American Internationalism, 236. 107 Woodrow Wilson, "The Historian," Essential Writings and Speeches of the Scholar-President, 216, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qfgbg.10. 108 Wilson, The New Freedom, 16. Bailes 27 Early in the war during the period of United States neutrality, Wilson's reasons for remaining neutral stemmed from his belief in the exceptional nature of the American system and his desire for the United States to stay clear of European affairs. Even in American neutrality, Wilson still sought to mediate a peace in Europe because he perceived a chance to spread the democracy of the United States to Europe. Wilson believed that he needed to mediate in the European conflict because "mere terms of peace between the belligerents will not satisfy even the belligerents themselves," and he questioned whether the Entente and Central powers fought "for a just and secure peace, or only for a new balance of power."109 Wilson's peace aims were in sharp contrast to the Allied leaders, which illustrated his emphasis that the United States should mold a post-war Europe, and this tied directly to American Exceptionalism. While the British leadership concerned themselves with imperial interests, the French sought revenge on Germany from the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. Wilson made it clear in his war address that the United States had "no quarrel with the German people."110 Wilson's vision for a post-war world remained focused on a lasting peace rather than what he perceived as selfish imperial gains or senseless revenge. American Exceptionalism formed the foundation for the interventionist foreign policy of the Progressive Era, and it profoundly motivated Wilson as well as the bulk of American society. Diplomatic historian William Appleman Williams details the rise of the United States as a global power. Williams argues that most Americans in the early twentieth-century United States agreed not only with "Wilson's nationalistic outlook," but they also agreed that the nation should serve as an example for the rest of the world.111 As mentioned previously, Miles Dawson contributed 109 Woodrow Wilson, "Essential Terms for Peace in Europe," 393. 110 Woodrow Wilson, "Declaration of War," 401. 111 Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, 86. Bailes 28 to the July 1917 The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science to voice the justification of United States intervention in France. In his text, Dawson defined the five uniquely American fundamentals as: 1. The inalienable right of every man to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – not as a mere dead saying, but as a living reality. 2. The right of local self-government, within territories possessing or entitled to claim such right, embracing every power of government not expressly granted to the union. 3. The guaranty to each state of a forum for the redress of grievances of one state against another with full power to enforce the verdict of that forum. 4. The guaranty of a republican form of government to each constituent state. 5. The right and duty to maintain the union.112 To thinkers like Dawson, this unique set of traits not only provided United States citizens with a system of government that separated them from the rest of the world, but it inherently gave them a duty to spread the American ideology to the rest of the world. Fundamentally, the idea that the world should take the lead from the United States exemplified the broad theme of American Exceptionalism inspiring AEF actions in the war. With Progressivism and American Exceptionalism at the root of the war effort, the citizen-soldier of the AEF found inspiration in the same rhetoric. Nelson Lloyd described the "melting-pots" of the army cantonment areas in which soldiers who were born outside of the United States "have become true Americans. They have learned the language of America and the ideals of America and have turned willing soldiers in her cause."113 Michael Neiberg argues that a lasting legacy of United States involvement in the war became a unified American mission superseding any cultural allegiance, and "disagreements would no longer be based on ethnicity 112 Dawson, "The Significance of Our Mission in This War," 11. 113 Newson Lloyd, How We Went to War (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922), 58, https://archive.org/details/howwewenttowar00lloyrich/page/n7/mode/2up. Bailes 29 or religion."114 United States entry into the war gave the American citizen-soldier a reason for fighting to preserve a democratic system in Europe, and Wilson's belief that the United States would play a central role became widespread amongst the ranks of the AEF. Lieutenant Willard Hill of the Transport Division and 94th Aero Pursuit Squadron claimed when hearing of the United States entry into the war "that this war is not over yet and that the U.S. troops will play a very decisive factor."115 The purpose of United States entry into the war inspired an idealism that would unify soldiers and champion a belief that the AEF would save Europe from the autocracy of Imperial Germany. Private Willard Newton of the 105th Engineers, 30th Division, exclaimed his joy during the September offensives by stating, "[a]t last we are at the beginning of a real battle between Prussianism and Democracy! And we are to fight on the side of Democracy that the world may forever be free from the Prussian peril!"116 The sentiments of these soldiers expressed a voice that echoed Wilson's desire to utilize an American army to bring peace to Europe, and Pershing dutifully followed his instructions. Pershing's stubbornness in not giving in to the Allies' request to amalgamate troops remained the most significant source of friction between him and the Allied military leaders. Still, Pershing's belief that the doughboy remained a superior warrior to the French and British soldier intensified Pershing's negative feelings toward his Allied counterparts. Pershing did not hide his views regarding coalitions when he wrote early in his memoirs that "[h]istory is replete with the failures of coalitions and seemed to be repeating itself in the World War."117 Russell Weigley argues that Pershing believed "that only by fighting under American command would 114 Michael S. Neiberg, "Blinking Eyes Began to Open: Legacies from America's Road to the Great War, 1914-1917," Diplomatic History 38, no. 4 (2014): 812, https://doi:10.1093/dh/dhu023. 115 Lieutenant Willard D. Hill (Cleburne, Texas) in American Voices of World War I, 47. 116 Private Willard Newton (Gibson, North Carolina) in American Voices of World War I, 140. 117 Pershing, My Experiences in the World War, vol. 1, 34. Bailes 30 American soldiers retain the morale they needed to fight well."118 This assertion proved incorrect as those American doughboys who fought under French and British command performed extraordinarily.119 David Trask maintains that Pershing's "presumption that the American troops were superior to others in the war helps explain his stubborn insistence on an independent army even during the greatest crisis of the war."120 Although the German Spring Offensives of 1918 put the Allies in desperate need of replacements, Pershing held his ground in resisting amalgamation. He only agreed to temporary amalgamation after much deliberation. Pershing's plan required maintaining a separate and distinct American force if the United States was to play a critical role in defeating Imperial Germany. This plan did not always synchronize with General Foch's overall plan for the Allied strategy for defeating Imperial Germany. Mitchell Yockelson describes an instance in late September 1918 in which a newly established AEF officers' school near Pershing's headquarters pulled a bulk of American officers from the front lines, which "affected the AEF First Army divisions that were about to attack in the Meuse-Argonne operation."121 United States political leadership back home undoubtedly noticed the friction between Pershing and the Allied leaders. David Woodward mentioned that at one point, Wilson and Secretary Baker intervened to plead with Pershing to be more accommodating to the Allies. According to Woodward, "Pershing proved as immovable as ever when it came to wholesale amalgamation and introducing Americans to trench warfare before he deemed them ready for combat."122 118 Weigley, "Pershing and the U.S. Military Tradition," 335. 119 Weigley, 335. 120 Trask, The AEF & Coalition Warmaking, 61. 121 Yockelson, Borrowed Soldiers, 127. 122 Woodward, Trial by Friendship, 168-9. Bailes 31 Pershing's doctrine of "open warfare" proved predicated on a firm belief in the exceptional quality of the American fighting man. In his memoirs, Pershing documented his view that the results of the Battle of the Marne had placed the opposing forces in a trench defensive that had taken away their aggression and ability to fight an offensive battle. Pershing maintained that "victory could not be won by the costly process of attrition, but it must be won by driving the enemy out into the open and engaging him in a war of movement."123 Sergeant-major James Block of the 59th Infantry, 4th Division, wrote after an offensive near Belleau Wood that his troops "had proven to ourselves that we were the Hun's master, even in our present untrained condition. The Hun could not stand before us and battle man to man."124 David Trask argues that Pershing's reliance on the rifle and bayonet under his open warfare doctrine limited the AEF's ability to adapt to the combined arms fight as quickly as did the French and British.125 In his Final Report, Pershing praised the Allied training system that prepared his inexperienced troops for combat on the Western Front. Although he admitted that his soldiers needed to learn from the experiences of the combat tested French and British, he stated that "[t]he long period of trench warfare had so impressed itself upon the French and British that they had almost entirely dispensed with training for open warfare."126 Pershing relied heavily on his infantrymen, and he saw the rifle and the bayonet as the superior weapon. He did not factor advances in the machine gun, tanks, and artillery to integrate all lethal assets onto the battlefield. According to Richard Faulkner, Pershing planned on using his troops – who he believed were 123 Pershing, 151-4. 124 Sergeant-major James W. Block (Marquette, Michigan) in American Voices of World War I, 108. 125 Trask, The AEF & Coalition Warmaking, 19. 126 Pershing, Final Report, 13-5. Bailes 32 better suited for offensive warfare – to "force the Germans from their trenches into open terrain where the Allies' greater resources would then destroy the unprotected enemy army."127 Perhaps nothing exhibited Pershing's obtuse attitude toward his Allied counterparts more than his desire to beat the French in seizing Sedan from the Germans. Pershing outlined his wishes that his "troops should capture Sedan, which the French had lost in a decisive battle in 1870."128 Russell Weigley comments on Pershing's intent "to try to snatch from the French army the honor of recapturing the historic fortress city of Sedan, where the Emperor Napoleon III had surrendered to the Prussians on September 1-2, 1870."129 Sergeant-major Block described the fierce German resistance during the late September Allied offensives. Still, he claimed that "[o]nce the Americans penetrated that line, their advance northward would be comparatively easy. Sedan would fall next."130 The AEF performed well during the offensives in early November, and the crumbling Imperial German army made Sedan easily attainable for either Pershing's Second Army or the Franco-American armies.131 David Trask points out the diplomatic issue that would ensue if Pershing were to "deprive the French army of this honor."132 The new commander of the American First Army, General Liggett, ultimately did not carry out the attack, which undoubtably prevented a political and diplomatic disaster.133 Russell Weigley maintains that Liggett changed plans after "the offended French" updated him of Pershing's plans on November 7.134 The idea that Pershing wished to take away French retribution by giving 127 Faulkner, Pershing's Crusaders, 285. 128 Pershing, My Experiences in the World War, vol. 2, 381. 129 Weigley, "Pershing and the U.S. Military Tradition," 342. 130 Sergeant-major Block in American Voices of World War I, 135. 131 Bruce, A Fraternity of Arms, 282-3. 132 Trask, The AEF & Coalition Warmaking, 174. 133 Trask, 174, 134 Weigley, 343. Bailes 33 his troops a decisive victory and morale boost demonstrated his disconnect from the sentiments of his Allied counterparts. Pershing's belief in the superiority of the American soldier to his French and British counterpart extended to the lower ranks of the AEF. While perhaps sensationalizing his account, Scout Corporal Edward Radcliffe of the 109th Infantry, 28th Division wrote regarding actions around St Agnon "that the French of the 10th or 6th army had fallen back, their officers being shot by our men when they ordered them to retreat."135 In a post-World War I survey, Sergeant Donald Drake Kyler of the 16th Infantry, 1st Division answered a question about what he learned about America and Americans from the war. Sergeant Kyler stated that "Americans are inclined to brag about their systems and accomplishments which may or not be superior to those of other peoples or cultures."136 In many of the accounts of AEF actions in Europe, General Pershing and his doughboys showcased American Exceptionalism. Richard Faulkner devotes a chapter of his text to argue that most of the AEF doughboys perceived inferiority in the French way of life compared to the United States. The majority of white AEF soldiers came away from the war, believing that, in terms of technology as well as general health and welfare, American society remained superior to that of France and England.137 Faulkner makes note that "with the notable exception of the African Americans, the soldiers generally believed that their society was markedly superior to anything they encountered in Europe."138 Sergeant-major Block wrote a letter home to his parents during the post-war occupation period. He wrote of the perception that "Paris makes up for the backwardness of the rest of France."139 135 Corporal Edward Radcliffe in American Voices of World War I, 94. 136 Sergeant Donald Drake Kyler (Fort Thomas, Kentucky) in American Voices of World War I, 196. 137 Faulkner, Pershing's Crusaders, 188-93. 138 Faulkner, 189. 139 Sergeant-major Block in American Voices of World War I, 191. Bailes 34 While the bond formed between the French and British soldiers and the AEF doughboy proved strong, there still seemed to be a sentiment of American superiority amongst the AEF ranks. Tasker H. Bliss, who served as Army Chief of Staff from September 1917 to May 1918, documented the challenge of absent unified Allied command in a 1922 essay. Bliss wrote a detailed piece in which he criticized the lack of a unified Allied mission while praising General Foch and championing his eventual selection as "Allied Commander-in-Chief."140 Bliss condemned the Allied leaders for waiting so long before establishing any sort of unified command, and he argued that for the first years of the war, they fought for their national goals only. Bliss maintained that this hindered United States integration into the war effort as well.141 Charles Pettit wrote an account of his time on the Western Front. Initially serving in the British army, Pettit joined the AEF once they arrived and concluded his 42 months of combat with the Rainbow Division. Pettit commented that "[w]e know why the French and English didn't win the War. They was waiting for us."142 Robert Bruce expands on the relationship between the American and French soldiers during the post-war occupation period. The doughboys believed that the Allied victory had eliminated the threat of autocratic Imperial Germany. At the same time, the French soldiers still demonstrated distrust of the German for fear of a future war. According to Bruce, "Americans did not want to hear about the need to prepare for a future war with Germany. They believed that victory in the Great War and the conversion of Germany to a democracy was enough to end the menace; Americans were unwilling to do more."143 For the AEF doughboy, the United States' actions in the war had saved Europe from the threat of the 140 Tasker H. Bliss, "The Evolution of the Unified Command," Foreign Affairs 1, no. 2 (December 1922): 1-30, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20028211. 141 Bliss, 7-30. 142 Charles A. Pettit in Echoes From Over There: By the Men of the Army and Marine Corps who Fought in France, eds. Craig Hamilton and Louise Corbin (New York City: The Soldiers' Publishing Company, 1919), 107-9. 143 Bruce, A Fraternity of Arms, 289. Bailes 35 Imperial German autocracy. United States' involvement in its first large-scale coalition operation had solidified the dominance of the American soldier and the system for which he fought. The American doughboy contributed significantly to the Allied victory over Imperial Germany. Without American boots on the ground in France, Imperial Germany may have defeated the Allies. Allan Millett argues that Pershing's independent army did not achieve all that Pershing had hoped. Still, Millett maintains that an accurate assessment of the war would be that the "Allies might have lost the war without the American Expeditionary Forces."144 With the Russian withdrawal from the war and Germany's surge in the Western Front in the Spring of 1918, the Allies desperately needed more boots on the ground. AEF actions in Cantigny, Belleau Wood, and the attack on the Hindenburg line proved the value of the doughboys to the Allied victory over Imperial Germany and the Central Powers. Acknowledging the contribution of the American soldier to the Allied victory should remain a critical focus of any study of United States involvement in the war. While the presence of American troops on the ground benefited the Allies and did give Wilson his seat at the post-war peace talks, Pershing did not realize his grand vision of an independent American army crushing Imperial Germany. Bullitt Lowry documents Pershing's desire to capitalize on increasing the United States combat power to continue pressing a weakening German army and deliver a crushing blow.145 The Germans signed the armistice before Pershing could make this happen. While Wilson gained his seat at the peace conference and Pershing did not get his chance to win a tactical victory, the French and British still received their original desires and delivered Germany "harsh armistice terms."146 144 Millett, "Over Where?," 251. 145 Lowry, "Pershing and the Armistice," 286-91. 146 Lowry, 291. Bailes 36 With the eventual collapse of the League of Nations, Wilson never achieved his vision of a new world order for peace. Still, the United States government had established its importance and commenced its entry into the realm of global powers. United States involvement in the First World War helped solidify a national identity as well as establish an American presence on the international stage. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. wrote a letter on May 15, 1919, in which he documented the benefit of the war and what he saw as "Americanizing and democratizing" the soldiers through military service.147 Roosevelt commented that through service in support of the war effort, "love of the men for their country has been deepened, that their sense of real democracy has been sharpened and steadied and that insofar as any possible bad effect goes, the men are more than ever ready and determined to see order and fair play for all."148 In a similar vein, Italian born AEF Sergeant Morini wrote that the war provided him a chance "to make good on my Americanism."149 To Morini, fighting in the war provided him with "the right to the name Yankee all right."150 While the United States' efforts in the war were in support of the Allies, the war became a chance for the nation to claim its identity. A country that had been torn apart by civil war half a century before utilized the war effort to continue to unify and recover its self-proclaimed providence. The war ostensibly became an effort to Americanize its own citizens. The historiography of United States involvement in the First World War presents various arguments. Some historians such as David Trask and Russell Weigley remain critical of General Pershing and his decision making. While some scholarly history shows a narrative less scathing of Pershing, most of the description found in popular history showcases valiant actions of 147 Theodore Roosevelt in Echoes From Over There, 95. 148 Roosevelt, 95. 149 Sergeant Morini in Echoes From Over There, 115. 150 Morini, 115. Bailes 37 Pershing and his efforts in maneuvering the American Expeditionary Forces to achieve victory for the Allies against Imperial Germany. The fact remains that while the doughboys contributed significantly to the Allied victory, they helped the most when they were not fighting Pershing's fight. In his Final Report, Pershing highlights the benefit that the Allies provided to the American forces. In terms of training as well as logistics, the Allies provided the doughboys with the resources they needed to defeat Imperial Germany and the Central Powers effectively.151 Pershing recognized what the Allies had supplied him and his men, but his stubbornness and arrogance still clouded his vision to a degree. While Pershing did build a trusting relationship with the Allied commanders, and his troops were efficient, he did not always operate per their same vision. At times, Pershing's desire to maintain an independent American army superseded his desire to enable the Allied strategy. Pershing strived to meet Wilson's intent of keeping a distinct American command. The question remains if, in carrying out his President's instructions, Pershing prolonged the war and delayed the defeat of the Central Powers. Secondary and primary source literature from the First World War showcases both Wilson's peace aims – which were shaped by his ideology – as well as General Pershing and AEF actions while attempting to remain an independent command in the war. When war broke out in August 1914 in Europe, Wilson tried to mediate a peace while maintaining United States neutrality. When continued trade with the Allies brought the United States into the war in April of 1917, he seized the chance to shape a new world order by establishing an independent American command to defeat Imperial Germany. Primarily because of the Progressive Movement in the United States and the concepts surrounding American Exceptionalism, the American soldier embraced Wilson's ideologies for fighting and fought valiantly to defeat the 151 Pershing, Final Report, 90. Bailes 38 Imperial German autocracy. The Progressive Movement had established itself in American society by the time the citizen-soldier went to war in France, and the principles of American Exceptionalism permeated in virtually every facet of American culture. The American doughboy carried both of these concepts with him to France. Despite Pershing not attaining his decisive blow against the German army, and Wilson not achieving his vision for a new world order, the United States still met a significant amount of Wilson's original intent for entering the war. Wilson's ideologies influenced how the AEF fought in France. As the First World War shaped the United States standing as a global power, it also demonstrated the critical nature of maintaining relationships with coalition partners. Hew Strachan begins the conclusion to his history of the war by stating that "[t]he First World War was a coalition war."152 The American doughboy established a positive relationship with his French and British counterparts. The ability of the American soldier to learn from the experiences of the combat tested Allies, to adapt to the rigors of trench warfare, and to perform well in battle fighting beside his international partners shows the success of the AEF's performance in the nation's first large-scale coalition operation. Despite these successes, the AEF doughboy exhibited American Exceptionalism in the First World War. As the United States built its presence in the international realm over the following century, and the need for maintaining partnerships with allied nations continued to increase, the precedent set by the AEF in the nation's first large-scale coalition operation would be essential. 152 Hew Strachan, The First World War (New York: Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group, 2004; New York: Penguin Group, 2013), 303. Bailes 39 Bibliography Secondary Sources Adas, Michael. "Ambivalent Ally: American Military Intervention and the Endgame and Legacy of World War I." Diplomatic History 38 no. 4 (September 2014): 700-712, http://doi.org/10.1093/dh.dhu032. Ambrosius, Lloyd E. Wilsonianism: Woodrow Wilson and His Legacy in American Foreign Relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Ambrosius, Lloyd E. Woodrow Wilson and American Internationalism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Ambrosius, Lloyd E. "World War I and the Paradox of Wilsonianism." 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When it comes to foreign and security policy, the new British Labour government has inherited a very bad hand from its predecessors, which it would take great skill to play with any success. Unfortunately, judging by its statements so far, not only does the new administration lack such skill, it is not even sure what game it is playing.
With the partial exception of policy towards the EU, it does not in fact appear that Labour policy will differ significantly from that of the Conservatives. Nor indeed can it differ, if it is determined to go on operating within the very narrow parameters laid down by the British foreign and security establishment. The unconditional allegiance of this establishment to the United States makes even thinking about British national interests difficult, if not impossible.
The Labour government's overall approach was set out by the new foreign secretary, David Lammy, in an essay for Foreign Affairs before the election. It begins with a refreshing acknowledgement of Britain's relative — and to some extent absolute — decline. As Lammy says, the last time Labour was elected to form a new government, in 1997, Britain's economy was larger than those of China and India combined. Today it is smaller than India's and barely a fifth that of China.
Lammy says that the government will be guided by what he calls "Progressive realism":"Progressive realism advocates using realist means to pursue progressive ends. For the British government, that requires tough-minded honesty about the United Kingdom, the balance of power, and the state of the world. But instead of using the logic of realism solely to accumulate power, progressive realism uses it in service of just goals—for example, countering climate change, defending democracy, and advancing the world's economic development. It is the pursuit of ideals without delusions about what is achievable."The problem is that at no stage in what follows does Lammy appear to understand the very basic principle of Realism: that successful foreign policy requires making some very hard and unpopular choices; and that these choices are often not only between what is practically possible and what is not, but between greater and lesser evils. The more conflicted and dangerous the environment, the harder and more unpleasant these choices are liable to become.
Thus in a rare piece of hypocrisy, in his presentation of "progressive realism," Lammy seeks to combine the legacies of "two great British Foreign Secretaries," Ernest Bevin, who helped to create NATO and rally the West to confront the Soviet threat; and Robin Cook, who resigned in protest against Tony Blair's decision to join the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But Lammy's boss, new Prime Minister Keir Starmer, has in recent years ruthlessly purged the Labour Party of those who opposed the Iraq War, and packed it instead with Blairites who supported it.
Lammy acknowledges the "failures" of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and vows that a Labour government will not repeat these errors. He then immediately states:"That said, the last decade has made it clear that inaction has high costs, too. The fact that the United States did not police its redline against the use of chemical weapons in Syria not only entrenched Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's monstrous regime; it also emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin. He concluded that the West no longer had the stomach to defend the rules-based order and, by annexing Crimea, applied the logic of what David Miliband, another former Labour foreign secretary, has called 'the age of impunity.'"In other words, instead of actually learning from the disasters of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, the U.S., with Britain in tow, should have repeated those disasters in Syria, probably on an even greater scale. And while Lammy pays lip-service to the need to respect the views of the countries of the "Global South," he continues to patronize them by repeating U.S.-style boilerplate language about a "rules based order" that most of the world outside the West (including elites who want partnership with Washington) sees as no more than a transparent propagandist cover for U.S. hegemony.
When it comes to a refusal to face hard choices, Lammy, and Labour policy, reach their apogee with his words about policy towards China: "The United Kingdom must instead adopt a more consistent strategy, one that simultaneously challenges, competes against, and cooperates with China as appropriate."
This passage (while entirely in line with previous Conservative government statements) suggests that Lammy also has a rather poor grasp of the English language, at least when it comes to the meaning of the word "consistent."
The core problem of British policy (not just Labour's, but that of the entire British Blob, or Bloblet) lies in the combination of the following two passages:"Above all else, the United Kingdom must continue supporting Ukraine. The future of European security depends on the outcome of the war there, and the British government must leave the Kremlin with no doubt that it will support Kyiv for as long as it takes to achieve victory. Once Ukraine has prevailed, the United Kingdom should play a leading role in securing Ukraine's place in NATO. …
"European security will be the Labour Party's foreign policy priority. But the British government cannot focus exclusively on the continent. Realism also means recognizing that the Indo-Pacific will be fundamental to global prosperity and security in the decades ahead, so the United Kingdom must strengthen its engagement with that region, as well."As usual with such Western statements, Lammy does not say what he means by "victory" for Ukraine, thereby depriving his readers of any opportunity to judge whether his goal is remotely achievable. The combination of these passages also involves either the delusions of British power that Lammy claims to criticize, or a cowardly refusal to make realistic choices.
For if the future of European security really depends on the outcome of the war in Ukraine, and if the British government really believes that the only acceptable outcome is Ukrainian victory, then it should be obvious that to achieve this goal will require the great expansion and entire commitment of British military industry to this goal, together with the complete deployment of the British armed forces to Europe as a back-up in case this escalates to direct war with Russia.
This is all the more so because British industries and armed forces are in a truly dilapidated state. The ships keep breaking down, and there are far too few of them. The army has only one brigade available for immediate deployment. In these circumstances, to make new British security commitments in Asia would seem to verge on strategic madness.
But of course, British security policy is not really British. It is in the end made in Washington, with the near-unanimous consent of the British establishment. This has become a sort of establishment doctrine, largely independent of actual evidence or considerations of actual national interest. This in turn makes it even more difficult to mobilize the British people behind this dogma; for why should they risk their lives and sacrifice their wellbeing for goals set in Washington, over which they have not the slightest influence?
Moreover, there now appears to be a serious possibility that under the next U.S. administration, American policy will shift suddenly, even as the Trump administration's political ideology and culture diverge radically from that of Labour. Maybe Lammy and his government colleagues have given serious thought to what Britain will do in this event, and if Britain and Europe can really support Ukraine without massive U.S. help, or without going to war with Russia themselves. If so, there is no sign of it in their statements.
If readers will forgive a sentimental note from a patriotic British subject, in recent decades I have often seen Britain as resembling the magnificent but hopelessly obsolete warship HMS Temeraire in the famous painting by Turner, towed by an American steam tug in directions determined by America. It now appears however that the steamship may be about to cast off the tow. What will then become of British foreign policy God alone knows. David Lammy certainly doesn't.

The heads of state and government of all 32 NATO allies will meet at a summit in Washington, July 9-11, to celebrate the Alliance's 75th birthday. It was scheduled more than a year ago, but, as the date has approached, it increasingly seems like a bad idea.Of course, nobody could have foreseen current concerns in the American media and political class of President Joe Biden's travails stemming from his poor debate performance with Donald Trump on June 27. Unfortunately, that story risks squeezing the summit's achievements off page one. In public, the 31 non-U.S. NATO leaders will demonstrate their confidence in Mr. Biden's leadership, vision, and personal staying power for a second term. But in private, some allied leaders will quietly whisper misgivings into the prying ears of the hordes of media hovering at the fringes of the official meetings. This is to be expected, although, faced with a choice, there is overwhelming preference among allied leaders for Mr. Biden as president next year rather than Trump, who has at times been viewed as less than committed to a strong NATO. Holding a NATO summit now is also unfortunate for a reason directly related to alliance business. Dominating the agenda is the continuing war in Ukraine. There is much to be considered, especially the quantity and quality of allies' support for Ukraine's war effort against Russia's aggression. Led by the United States, the allies must continue making careful calculations about the nature of military support for Ukraine, especially the capacity to strike targets in Russia — although at the summit, these discussions will likely occur "off line" rather than in plenary sessions.Discussion of the Ukraine War will be constrained by several factors, one is that not all the Western allies are convinced that they should put their own security on the line for Ukraine, especially if this means an increased possibility of a direct Russian attack on an allied state — or threats such as cyber attack, which have already begun. At the extreme, Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orbán, spent the past few days meeting with Vladimir Putin, thus appearing to thumb his nose at NATO's support for Kyiv. Some allies even worry about Putin's threat to escalate to nuclear use, even though this is most unlikely, given that it would mean Russia's risking mutual suicide.Further, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has regularly declared that his country's goal is "victory" which he has defined as regaining on the battlefield not just lands Russia occupied since its 2022 invasion, but also territories, including Crimea, that it seized in 2014. No serious person believes that this is possible. But it is impolitic to say so while Ukraine is fighting for its life. It will be hard for the allies at the Washington summit not to endorse Ukraine's goal of victory, however ill-defined.It will also be impolitic for the NATO summit to discuss possible negotiations with Russia on the war. That will have to be done at another venue at another time. Then, there will be debate about the "when and how" to enter into negotiations to try to end the war — for Ukraine, on terms that it can accept; but, like it or not, the "whether" of negotiations with Russia at some point is unavoidable. Otherwise, the war will just continue, with massive killing and physical destruction, to no apparent end. But this issue will not be touched at the summit, lest there appear to be any breaking of ranks with Kyiv. An added complication is that, while negotiations to end the war could not take place without Ukraine's involvement, any outcome would need to be agreed and underwritten by the only powers that ultimately count, the United States and Russia.Discussion of the Ukraine War will be further complicated at the summit by a strategic mistake NATO made at its 2008 Bucharest summit, when it proclaimed that Ukraine (and Georgia) "will become members of NATO." That seemed harmless enough, but not to Russia. It would be as though the West were to accept that Ukraine would become a Kremlin satrapy. But instead of recognizing its mistake, NATO, under U.S. prodding, has continued ritually to repeat the formulation and will no doubt do so again at the Washington summit, as fealty to Ukrainian desires. Yet in addition to flying in the face of geopolitical reality — that Ukraine, while a Western-oriented democracy, is a natural buffer state — the commitment to its eventual NATO membership plays into the hands of Mr. Putin, who has his own constituency to answer to, particularly in light of horrendous Russian as well as Ukrainian battlefield losses. Further, the commitment is quite useless. Not only does it provide no immediate and practical benefit to Ukraine, but it would never be honored. It is virtually inconceivable that, at any point, all 32 NATO allies would join the consensus required for any country to enter the Alliance, with the commitment that "an armed attack against one or more [allies]… shall be considered an attack against them all." The summit's Ukraine agenda also involves NATO's overall military and related capabilities. Here, there is good news for the Alliance's requirements. Most important are the last few year's enormous advances in allied military efforts, organization, deployments, and preparedness for potential conflict. Efforts for the future are also on track and the summit will review them in detail.Further, the Alliance is making progress on the target agreed at its 2014 summit that each ally should spend at least two percent of its gross domestic product on defense. That target was only roughly a measure of military capacity, however — indeed, the raw number is about inputs (money) rather than outputs (effectiveness), a more relevant measure. And the intended audience for that target was as much the U.S. Congress with its inveterate demand that the European allies assume more of common burdens — as Congress is again doing over the Ukraine War — as it was Russia, which had just taken Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine. Indeed, NATO has recently announced that 23 of the 32 allies have now met the two percent target (though what Congress will make of the nine laggards is not yet clear). In one bright spot for American bipartisanship, both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump have taken credit for the increase in the number of allies that are now meeting the target.A last "untouchable" issue for the summit is what to do about Russia in the future. Geopolitical facts are what they are: Russia will not be destroyed, it remains a looming presence whoever is in power in the Kremlin, and at some point the West will need to try configuring overall European security with Russia as active participant. As of now, despite his rhetoric, Mr. Putin is unlikely to be interested in serious negotiations, either on Ukraine or on broader European security. Thus at the summit, allied leaders will steer clear of this matter, too, although it is of critical importance (despite many American commentators' having already proclaimed "Cold War II" with Russia).Ironically, the aspiration of including Russia in European security arrangements, as a geopolitical necessity, was formulated by President George H. W. Bush in May 1989 and followed by President Bill Clinton: to try creating a "Europe whole and free" and at peace. In the 1990s, there were efforts to work effectively with Russia, notably the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act. But by the early 2000s, cooperation went off the rails. This was due in part to Mr. Putin's ambition to regain at least some of the lost Soviet territories. But it also resulted from the view of a succession of U.S. policymakers that Russia would remain a second-rate power whose interests could be largely ignored — a miscalculation of historical proportions. With the ongoing war in Ukraine, this underlying and unavoidable strategic concern will be postponed to some indefinite future time.